


The Feline Perspective of a Guilty Conscience

by almaasi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Transformation, Cat Dean, Collars, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Guilty Castiel, Heavy Petting, Human Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men of Letters Headquarters, Naked Cuddling, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:11:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 51,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few days ago, the angels were cast out of Heaven. Castiel believes it’s all his fault, and now he’s almost out of power, too. But that’s unimportant - Sam is dying, and Dean needs Cas to fix him before it’s too late. Cas’ selfless last efforts to save Sam backfire in the most unexpected way: Dean transforms into a cat. It seems like he’ll be stuck like that, and all Castiel can do is blame himself. The days pass without any clues on how to fix their predicament, and when Sam starts getting sick again, with Dean out for the count, Castiel realises that he’s the only one who can save Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewonderofliving](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewonderofliving/gifts).



> Written for the [Animal Big Bang 2013](http://animal-bigbang.livejournal.com/).  
> Art by [moondansr](http://moondansr.tumblr.com/) // [see the art here!](http://imgur.com/t1yIyWv)  
> Beta'd by [winglesschester](http://winglesschester.tumblr.com).
> 
> Mountains of love for [Millie](http://thewonderofliving.tumblr.com/); this was not what I meant to write her, but I hope it's decent in any case.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Angst, some blood and icky things, mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts. One uncomfortable Cas/[spoilers: not-Dean] kiss. Explicit sex: mild comeplay, kind-of bottom!Dean.
> 
> The majority of this story was written before 9x01 aired, but contains a scene from that episode, as well as spoilers for the season 8 finale.
> 
> Also, beware of the author's slightly haphazard standpoint regarding demon ingredients. Author is making soup.

“Cas, you there?”

Silence. Dean hadn’t expected anything else. The chapel was empty of other voices; everyone else who knelt for silent prayer kept their pleas to themselves.

“Sammy’s hurt,” Dean forced out, no more than a guttural whisper. Straight to the point; he needed to be heard, he needed a reply. “He’s hurt - uh―” God, it felt like shit. It cut him deep to say it aloud.

“He’s hurt pretty bad.”

Dean was holding back tears. They were there in his eyes, waiting to fall, and he wouldn’t let them.

“And, uh...”

He’d never needed Cas here more than he needed him here now. He couldn’t name any one reason why, but all he felt was this _need_. It ached. It burned and it felt sore, and he always felt that way any time Cas was gone. He knew what that feeling meant. He’d never say it, not in a prayer, not to Cas’ face.

And among all the things he knew, he knew what he needed to say to get Cas here. It was selfish, bordering on a lie, but the other things weren’t of the highest priority, not when all he wanted, all he needed, hinged on him saying, “I know you think that I’m pissed at you, ‘kay, but I don’t care that the angels fell. So whatever you did - or _didn’t_ \- do...” He look a breath. “It doesn’t matter. Okay? We’ll work it out.

“ _Please_ , man, I need you here.” He fell to the begging, the pleading, because _fuck_ , it was so important.

So important that the seconds, the passing seconds, the quiet room of the tiny off-road chapel, the tick, tick, tick of the silent clock in his head, they ran out. The point hit its mark and blared the alarm.

He didn’t have time to waste any more. If Cas wasn’t answering, then this decision was no longer up to the two of them. This was up to Dean, and he was man enough to ask for help.

“Screw it.” A plume of intense power rode up in him, feeling the stress of these words. “Okay, listen up. This one goes out to any angel who’s got his ears on.

“This is Dean Winchester.

“And I need your help.”

✖✖✖

Nobody answered.

✖✖✖

Three days later, Dean’s cellphone rang.

It rang and it rang, because Dean wasn’t paying attention any more. He’d spent the last three days running cold baths for Sam, filling hot water bottles, washing out wet and bloodied rags. For the first time since returning to the bunker from the chapel, he took a shower.

He washed away blood. Sam’s blood. It swirled down the drain, and Dean hated to watch it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off it. It felt the same as watching black sludge sink down in a spiral, leftover Leviathan ooze. Black, red, turning in endless circles. The signs of losing his loved ones.

He closed his eyes and shut everything out.

✖✖✖

The phone rang again. It vibrated against the long wooden table that was set down the centre of the marble library, buzzing furiously, like it knew the calibre of the message being left unsaid.

It rang until the caller gave up.

But, soon enough, it popped up with a new message, a voicemail.

Half an hour passed before Dean came by, scrubbing his hair with a seventy-year-old towel. He noticed that his phone had fallen onto a chair, presumably having vibrated its way out of its place on the table. He thumbed its screen, frowning as he realised he’d missed something he ought not have missed.

Three minutes later, he was in his car, driving out of the shady night gulley, unlaced boot pounding the gas pedal.

Cas was at a truck stop eighty miles out. Dean was going to get him and bring him home.

✖✖✖

If Dean came looking, he would be looking for a trenchcoat, but Castiel knew he wouldn’t see one. The thing was bundled up and stuffed in a train station locker, along with everything but his underwear and his boots. If the other angels recognised him, he was a dead man.

In the four days he’d been grounded on Earth, he had adopted human means of avoidance. Changing his appearance was the first step to invisibility.

Over the past few years, the trenchcoat had come to be his insignia, so it was gone. His outerwear now consisted of torn jogging pants, a maroon hoodie and a tatty blue jacket, worn over Jimmy’s old white dress shirt, over a green t-shirt. Not that the colours were noticeable in the deep surroundings of the night.

The season had almost turned to summer, and the first rise of the year’s warmth kept Castiel from shivering. The fact he was so close to feeling cold meant dreadful things. It meant he was weak, nearly powerless. Nearly human.

There was still something in him, though. He could feel it in his fingers, a buzzing in his throat. It felt like a constant hum, a rivulet of blood running under his skin, flowing around and around his body. Pure power.

It was faint, yes. But it was there.

It was all his, and he would keep it, because it was all he had left.

Once, he was cosmos. He had been a singular grand design, part of the universe, the part of creation that shone and graced the endless valleys of the skies with his gleaming void of light. He’d been one of the smallest angels, maybe, but he led garrisons of unimaginable beings into battle with far worse creatures. He fought wars with storms and smoke and stars, and now he was nothing.

All he had left was a shred. A tassel.

It was enough.

The moment he heard the distant roar of Dean’s car, he felt like he’d been saved. He had been planning to sleep here, curled under the bus shelter like every other homeless man, because another destitute wreck was all he’d become - until Dean came for him.

Castiel felt like laughing. Oh, it was joy, it was marvellous, he was bubbling with _hope_ \- Dean still wanted him. He was coming to save him.

This had to be what Dean had felt at the moment Castiel gripped his shoulder and told the assembled hordes in Heaven that the Righteous Man was saved. Perhaps Dean never heard it, perhaps he never felt it. Perhaps he never understood the almighty screech of an angel’s voice.

But Castiel had heard Dean’s prayer this time, and Dean had gotten his phone call. This was how it worked, that was how they told each other they needed one another.

The sound of that approaching car engine rivalled any of Heaven’s songs.

Castiel was almost on tiptoes, hands clutching the insides of his jacket sleeves as he watched the Impala roar into view. Dean’s silhouette caught in orange lights from around the tarmac clearing, and Castiel swore he saw his halo.

The car swerved around in a U-turn, tyres screeching to swing the vehicle back the way it had come. If Castiel did not know that car and that halo so well, he would have assumed the car was driven by another hooligan out for a joyride.

Dean pulled up by the kerb and leaned over the passenger seat, popping the door lock. The door swung open, and Castiel caught its cold rim under his hand.

“Get in,” Dean said.

With no need to think about it, Castiel sank into the leather and closed the door, the car already moving before it slammed.

“Sam’s sick,” Dean informed Castiel, barely looking at him as he pulled onto the highway heading east. “He’s been coughing up blood pretty much constantly, I think he’s gone into some kind of internal organ failure, I don’t fucking know. He’s practically catatonic, he’s shaking, and he’s got this - this - I dunno, this weird fever―”

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean glanced over, then back to the road, sentence cut short. “Yeah.” He gulped. “Yeah, hi, hello.”

Castiel peered at his friend, so glad to see him that even the sight of the sweat beaded on his forehead and pooling like stars in the gutter of his collarbones made him feel bright inside.

“So, Sam,” Dean went on, tapping an impatient hand on the steering wheel. The car raced along the darkened highway, dodging and swerving other cars as if they were stationary. “I can’t find anything. I’ve tried witch doctors and healers, I did a few spells, I’ve tried talking to fucking _Crowley_ , for god’s sake, but fuck knows he only wants something in return, and I’ve got nothing left to offer.”

“Crowley?”

Dean sucked in a cutting breath, eyes briefly meeting Castiel’s before turning away again. “Yeah. We got him chained up in our dungeon.” He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “In the bunker, that is.”

“I see.”

Castiel felt odd. Dean wasn’t looking at him, not holding his eye for any longer than a second at a time. Granted, he was driving, so he ought to focus on the road, but such things had never stopped him from indulging in full, silent conversations with Castiel before.

Dean had said in his prayer that he wasn’t mad. Castiel couldn’t tell if that was true or not. Dean moved his hands on the wheel tensely, shoulders stiff, fingers twitching. He was restless, and in a desperate hurry to return to his home, but it was obvious that there was far more to this terseness than Castiel’s various faults and failings over the past few days.

This was about Sam.

Castiel’s heart was hammering in time with Dean’s frantic fingers on the steering wheel, because he too felt the panic, the rising desperation.

Sam was dying, it was evident in Dean’s worry. There was no end to this. It was unfixable.

Dean seemed to have carried a train of thought in the same direction as Castiel had, because now his gaze tipped down to the car’s dashboard, eyelashes flickering as he parted his lips to ask, “You’ve still got your angel mojo, right?”

“Some,” Castiel assured him. But the assurance fell to pieces then, because all he had left was deteriorating. Metatron had slit his throat to remove the mass of it, and like a jar of perishable foodstuffs with the lid popped open, whatever remained at the bottom of the jar would not last long. It would rot and turn sour, and in time, evaporate.

“You’re gonna fix him,” Dean breathed, nodding. He spoke more to himself than Castiel, pushing hope onto himself. “You’re gonna fix him, and he’ll be fine.”

“Dean―”

“You will,” Dean said, so firmly that it left no room for argument. “You’ve got it, Cas. He’ll be fine.”

Castiel didn’t know how to argue that. He would give Dean anything, and if he wanted the last wisp of what made Castiel worth anything at all, then he could have it, whether it would work or not.

They drove in silence.

✖✖✖

The bunker looked bigger now. Taller, darker, and more foreboding. Castiel had not realised how losing his power would make not only his worth smaller, but also how he fit into the world. He was an ant now, walking in a forest grown for giants.

Among humans, he was nothing but a child.

Dean tossed his car keys in hand, hurrying down the concrete steps the led to the nondescript entrance in a dip beside the road. The trees blustered around in the night-time wind, hushing rumours and whispers, all of them about how badly Castiel had fucked up this time.

 _Fucked up._ Those were easy words from Dean’s mouth, but to hear Castiel’s own vibrato in his tiny human mind, the words sounded vile, contemptuous. They snared on his thoughts - and they were meant to, for he was angry at himself.

His own self-centred ire was nothing, however, compared to how the other angels would see him. Metatron’s doing aside, Castiel felt like he himself had personally pulled his brethren’s wings out, like a tormenting child with caught butterflies and gleeful hands.

He closed the bunker’s door behind himself, watching Dean’s wide-shouldered figure moving ahead, a shadow walking into the light of the hall beyond.

“Sammy!” Dean called, voice rebounding through the hall. “We’re back.”

Castiel followed, walking slowly as he entered the hall via the small steps. The map table was lit the same as it had been the last time he was here, not days before. It seemed bigger this time. Everything did.

Castiel heard a pitiful snort from the far side of the hall, and turned his eyes past the long table, past the bookshelves and the golden lights, gaze coming to rest in the place Dean was headed. There, perpendicular to the rows of bookshelves, parallel to the table, was a dark couch, fully weighted with a mound of blankets.

Castiel felt a stir of shock as the blankets moved, and he realised they were Sam.

The pale face, blood-streaked chin, the glazed-over eyes whited with cataracts, cheeks thinned to the bone... that was Sam.

Dean cupped his brother’s face in his hand. Castiel moved forward, watching with a ghost-like horror as he approached the couch. He perhaps had the power to repair a few broken bones, stop a bloodied cough, or even ease a case of influenza, but seeing the state the younger Winchester was in made it clear to Castiel: there was nothing he could do.

“Dean...”

“Fix it,” Dean said, standing up straight, pulling blood-soaked cloths into his hands, folding one over to allow the cleaner side to be pressed back to Sam’s forehead. “I’m asking you for one thing, Cas, and that is for you to make him _better_. You hear me?”

Castiel turned his head in utter regret. “Dean, I can’t―”

“You can.” Dean rounded on Castiel, jaw firm. “You can, and you will.”

Castiel’s lower lip fell a short way, a bare tremble touching the muscle. “What I have, in me, this isn’t power like you know it. This is the crud from the seabed, the smears left over when the meal’s already been eaten by someone else. It’s not enough, Dean. I know it, and you know it.”

“Then what good are you.”

It wasn’t even a question, and Castiel wanted to say, _how dare you_. How dare Dean weigh his worth on something he didn’t have?

“Metatron―”

“I don’t _care_!”

Castiel stifled a laugh. Dean couldn’t possibly be serious. No, he couldn’t. Only a child would―

“Cas, I am _begging_ you, here.” Dean looked up and held Castiel’s eye. Held it firmly, held it fiercely. He looked at him properly for the first time since they’d parted ways. “If there is anything, any part of you that can fix this, can maybe make it a bit easier for him? You do it. Do it for me, do it for Sam. I don’t frigging care about anything else. You get Sam out of this alive.”

“Dean, why are you doing this to me?” Castiel breathed. Seeing Sam there, unable to speak, set a coldness in Castiel’s bones. He felt guilty, whether it was his fault or not.

“Because, Cas.” Dean swallowed tightly, nostrils flaring. “You and him are the only things I have left.”

Those words felt like a burden, that which Castiel couldn’t carry; he’d never been strong enough for Dean.

Cosmos were not created to love. And yet...

Castiel was tired. He had not slept in two days, unwilling to give in to the realisation that he was, in fact, a broken force. He regretted this avoidance now, because the gravity of this situation came like a sack of bricks to his body, and all he wanted was to sleep.

“Cas,” Dean said again. Castiel looked him in the eye, wishing they had more time to talk, and say the things that needed to be said. This was a rush.

“If I do this,” Castiel said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice, “I will be human.”

“You’ve been human before.”

Castiel inclined his head. “This time it will be worse.”

“What’s worse,” Dean scoffed, bitter. “You human, or Sam dead?”

“Don’t trivialise it, Dean,” Castiel said, on the verge of desperation. “I want to help Sam, of course I do. But if I attempt this, and it doesn’t work, what then? I will be useless to you, Sam will still be sick, and God knows what else will go wrong after then. This is your life, Dean. These are _our_ lives. Nothing will be easy. Don’t think that if I press my fingers to his head, this will get better.”

“Oh,” Dean nodded, almost amused. “Oh, right, you’re asking me not to get disappointed if this goes wrong.”

Castiel looked at him, sad, but stern. “That is exactly what I’m asking.”

The laugh went out of Dean, because he understood. He pulled in a breath, raising his shoulders. He slowly nodded, lips pressed together. “All right,” he said, lightly, stepping away from Sam’s curled form. “Go for it. Have at him.”

Castiel moved forward, feeling the sharp tug on the skin behind his knees as he knelt, jogging pants pulled taut. The marble was cold and hard under his knees.

Sam looked at him from where he lay, irises searching for a few moments before they locked onto Castiel’s face.

“Hey,” Sam croaked, letting a dribble of blood ease down his unshaven chin. “Cas.”

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel said, softly. “How are you feeling?”

Sam managed a shallow smile. His whited-out eyes lost their focus again, gravity pulling their gaze downwards. Seeing that unsettled Castiel more than he thought possible.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Sam whispered, detached and quiet. It was like he was speaking into a completely different conversation.

“I’m going to try and help you, Sam,” Castiel told him, setting his hand flat on the topmost blanket, squeezing Sam’s shoulder reassuringly. “I don’t have much... juice, but I will try my best.”

Sam coughed, gritty and hard, splattering his lip and the rag in front of his face with red. “‘kay.”

Castiel dragged in a breath, closing his eyes.

He searched for the light, the warmth in him. It was there, swimming in his bloodstream like a silver minnow in a river, going around and around, following his pulse. It was so small that it could only be chance whether or not Castiel used it at the right time.

This was it, he realised. There was no going back.

Sam was worth it.

With a touch to Sam’s forehead, Castiel pushed the silver minnow out of the river.

It flipped and swam back.

“I missed,” Castiel said, frowning.

Sam hummed and closed his eyes. “Don’ worry ‘bout it.”

Dean butted forward and wiped Sam’s chin with a freshly-rinsed flannel. “Yes, worry about it, Sammy. You’re gonna be looking me in the eye by the end of tonight, or so help me...”

Sam managed a smile, uneven and perfectly horrible. Upon seeing how lopsided it was, Castiel realised that at some point, Sam had suffered a stroke. “‘s okay, Cas, I’m good. ‘m just takin’ a li’l nap.”

“You hear this?” Dean said to Castiel, gesturing in disbelief at his brother. “This is how he’s been talking for days. He’s given up. It’s like he went to his happy place and gave the rest of the world the finger. Well, you know what, Sammy? Yeah, talking to you, Dopey. I’m not having it. Sit up.”

Castiel tried to bat Dean’s hands away, but Dean stuck a determined grip on Castiel’s wrist and removed him from beside the couch. Castiel could only watch, unhappy, as Dean manhandled the larger man upright, so his shoulders were flopped over the back of the couch, chin jutting upward. Dean sighed, straightening up when he was satisfied Sam was supporting himself to some extent.

“There,” Dean said, glancing at Castiel then back to Sam. “Now, Cas is gonna heal you right up, just you wait, little brother.”

Castiel steeled himself, trying to find the same faith in himself that Dean clearly had in him. If only he wasn’t so aware how futile it all was.

Castiel sat down beside Sam, careful not to jostle him. He wrapped one of his dirty hands around Sam’s clammy, sweaty one, and he stroked it with his other hand. “I’ll try, Sam.”

“Hmm,” Sam murmured. “You know what always works f’ me?”

“No, what works for you?” Castiel asked, feeling like he was being unintentionally condescending.

“If I think about what I want th’ most,” Sam said, slurring. “You c’n do it, Casss.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel whispered. He could feel Sam’s sluggish heartbeat under his fingers. “I’ll see if that works for me.”

“Aaaanything you want,” Sam cooed. “Wat’rmel’ns.”

Castiel caught Dean’s eye where Dean stood nearby, his folded arms putting wrinkles in his leather jacket. Dean shrugged, pretending the nonsense wasn’t as heartbreaking for him as it was for Castiel.

Castiel swallowed, closing his eyes and sealing out the bright, warm glow that came from all around the bunker’s main hall. Even the sound of Dean shifting in his boots faded out after a while, because Castiel focused on Sam’s heartbeat, synchronising it to his own, trying to align the flashing silver light to the beaming soul that rested under Sam’s skin.

It was flayed like no soul Castiel had ever seen, Dean’s inclusive. Shadows hung loose from places that ought to have starlight, gusts of cosmic air howled through holes which had somehow grown themselves.

Black holes. There were black holes in Sam’s soul.

He was collapsing in on himself, eating himself. It was cannibalism in the most sickening, unbelievable form. That soul was going nowhere, which was impossible. It was deleting itself.

Vaguely, at the edge of this inner spacetime, Castiel heard Sam singing. _Anything you want, anything you want._

Castiel wondered if those words were even meant for him. What other creatures were lurking in these systems, he was too small to tell. His inner eye could only see so far.

He pulled away from the dark stars, the specks that swallowed all. He opened his eyes enough to see Sam with a blood trail down his shirt, one eye drooping, muscles weak enough to make Castiel think his eyeball could be in danger of falling out.

Every second was precious.

Dean was barely breathing, simply waiting, his wide eyes on Castiel, and on his brother.

Castiel felt his flash of power nearing Sam’s pulse point for the umpeenth time. This time he’d get it, he’d push it the right way.

_Anything you want._

He pushed, and he caught his silver, wriggling fish, cutting himself on its fins - he had to push it right, he had to _do_ this―

_Anything you want, anything you want._

Humans were impressionable, even more so than angels who were too eager to please. Castiel shoved his silver spark into Sam, and he thought it was over. A tail, however, kept its grip on the bleeding hands of his soul.

The tail flicked. Castiel felt rather than saw a glint of silver light, a flare that shot across between the three small universes that were convened here.

Castiel learned, then, that humans were not only impressionable, but that songs were made to be remembered, repeated, sung over and over. And he learned that he, as a human, was a selfish prick.

✖✖✖

“Whoa,” Sam said. Castiel breathed to ease himself, and Sam peered at him through what felt like a new pair of eyes. The light in the bunker made Cas gleam, an outline of gold around his dark, greasy hair.

“Dude, when was the last time you washed?” Sam asked, incredulous.

Castiel panted for a moment, apparently still thrown by the surge and subsequent lack of power. Sam had been connected to him for that short, sharp second, and he knew that Castiel was empty now. That body was all his own; God only knew where Jimmy was.

Castiel looked from his own clothes to the front of Sam’s t-shirt. “I could ask the same of you.”

Sam raised his eyebrows as he saw the red smears down his shirt, and his eyebrows knitted together as he saw something that looked suspiciously like puke. “Ew.”

“ _Mow._ ”

Sam looked at Castiel, because that was a strange thing to say. But Castiel was looking back at Sam, frowning. Neither of them had made that noise.

Together, as one, they turned their faces to see where Dean had been standing.

He was no longer standing there. Sam almost fell off the couch, crawling on his hands and knees on the cold marble towards the smash of discarded clothes. “Dean?”

The clothes shifted, a lump inside them jerking to the side. “ _Mow._ ”

Hands shaking from apprehension rather than sickness, Sam reached forward and grasped the neck of the t-shirt that Dean had been wearing. It resisted as he pulled upward, but something alive and surprisingly heavy removed itself from the cloth, and Sam sucked in a stunned breath through bloodied lips as he watched something furry topple out of the shirt.

“That...” Sam swallowed, half-frozen. “That’s Dean.”

Castiel knelt beside Sam, eyes wide and staring at the cat sitting crumpled before them. “Yes,” he breathed. “Sam, that’s _Dean_.”

“ _Mow,_ ” Dean said.

“Cas, what did you do to him?!”

Castiel shook his head, open-mouthed. “I don’t know!”

Sam let the t-shirt fall from his hand, focusing on the creature that sat wearing Dean’s classic ‘ _what the fuck_ ’ face. Despite his all-over browny-ginger striped fur, he still looked like himself. He retained his green eyes and his clear-cut jawline, as well as his long eyelashes, with the addition of ridiculously gravity-defying whiskery eyebrows. One of his ears sat half-cocked, an eyebrow raised, his black lip drawn back on one side to show a sharp set of teeth. He looked mightily confused, but nonetheless, he didn’t seem all that bothered.

“Dean,” Sam said, looking Dean in the eye.

Dean went, “ _Mw?_ ”

“You understand me?”

Dean sneered. “ _Pshch._ ”

Sam sat back on his haunches, peering at his brother in absolute wonder. “This... This is a problem.”

Dean stood up on his perky back legs, then fell forward to stand on all fours. A tall tail whisked up to point straight above him, and he leapt lightly out of the puddle of clothing. His white underpants were still wrapped around his middle, catching on his legs.

“Uh, Dean―” Sam darted forward, grasping Dean around the middle. He was soft, almost like velvet, and thoroughly fluffy. Sam could feel his ribs under the fur, and that was about the most disconcerting thing he’d ever felt with his hands. “Cas, could you get that?”

Castiel inched forward, nervous breaths stifled in his throat as he removed Dean’s underwear. Dean kicked his back legs and squirmed around, but Sam held him steady.

Sam quirked a grin seeing how tenderly Castiel worked his fingers down Dean’s furry legs. Sam let Dean go once he was freed, and Dean took a few strutting steps away, then curved over himself and licked his side with his tongue to flatten the fur Sam had messed up.

Castiel squinted at Sam’s smile. “Nothing,” Sam said to Castiel, answering the unasked question. But he kept grinning, and eventually couldn’t resist any more. “It’s just, this probably wasn’t how you saw your first time taking Dean’s pants off going.”

Castiel, even though he was dirty, scruffy-faced and tired, still managed to appear childlike at the comment. His eyes flickered and darted away, the slightest sign of embarrassment rising on his face.

Sam looked back to the cat, only to see Dean staring between him and Castiel in consideration. Sam noted the lack of response from either of them.

“So,” Sam cleared his throat. “How do we fix this?”

“ _Mrssrrw wwaww m’rawwr..._ ” Dean said, before realising nobody understood him. He sat down and snuffled, narrowing his eyes in annoyance. The tip of his tail rattled about, then remained still.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Castiel breathed, his expression still reigned over by shock. “I’m glad you’re better, I didn’t think the healing would work as well as it did. But this―” He gestured at Dean, who was listening with his ears pricked forward, “This was not what I expected.”

“I said something,” Sam remembered. “I said ‘anything you want’.”

“This isn’t what I wanted, I swear to you,” Castiel gritted out, eyes wide as they set on Dean, then Sam, pleading them both to believe him. “I wanted you better, that was all.”

“It wasn’t all,” Sam said, shaking his head. He held his hand up to stop Castiel’s retort. “I believe you wanted me better, that intention isn’t under scrutiny here. I wouldn’t be better unless you wanted it. C’mon, Cas, you just _gave up_ the last of your power to save me.” He smiled at Castiel, feeling warm at the sight of him looking back. “That’s one of the most selfless things anyone’s ever done for me.”

Castiel puffed out a stressed breath.

Sam inclined his head, smiling as he went on, “But I said ‘anything you want’, and part of you―”

“I don’t want a cat _that_ badly!” Castiel interrupted, leaning further over his folded knees. Dean chirped as Sam chuckled.

“It’s not that,” Sam said. “He didn’t even say hello to you, did he?”

Castiel’s mouth rounded, then his eyelids slipped closed, blinking a few times. It was all Sam needed for an answer, and he knew his brother well enough to know that if Sam was in a bad state, Dean would ignore everything, pleasantries be damned, to get him better.

“Nobody’s holding what happened here against you,” Sam said, resting a strong hand on Castiel’s jogging pants, feeling the warmth of muscle through the thin cloth. “You just wanted some comfort.”

Castiel looked up at Sam with tears in his eyes. “I...” His lip trembled, and he pressed it closed. He managed a brief, small smile. “Yes.” He sighed through his nose as he leaned back, still kneeling. “Yes, I did.”

Dean made a scruffling noise in his throat. Sam glanced over, seeing a very clear expression that said ‘ _What does that have to do with me?_ ’

“Cats are comforting,” Sam explained to his brother. “Not that you’d know, given you sneeze if you come within ten feet of one.”

Dean harrumphed, tiny shoulders waggling to adjust his paws on the marble. “ _Mew._ ”

Castiel laughed quietly, then shot a guilty expression in Dean’s direction. “Sorry. You sound very―”

“Cute,” Sam finished. He shared a look with Castiel, both smiling.

Dean stood up and stalked away, shamelessly flaunting his rear in Castiel and Sam’s direction. Sam sneered, screwing up his face. He’d never wanted to see his brother’s naked butt, but apparently the cat version of Dean had no qualm with showing his rear end off.

Castiel was blushing, eyes locked on Dean, but simultaneously looked horrified. He’d paled out, and Sam couldn’t tell if that was a repercussion from the lack of power, the shock of having magic backfire like that, or plain old human fatigue.

“Sam,” Castiel said, the simple name turned ghostly on his tongue as he stared after the retreating feline. “Sam, what if he never changes back?”

Sam’s ears felt like they drained of blood, followed by his entire face. A part of him disconnected from himself, because that realisation hit him all at once. Now Castiel’s terror made sense. This wasn’t funny, this wasn’t a joke.

Dean could be stuck like that. Forever.

“Shit,” Sam breathed.

Castiel looked like he was about to cry.

Sam screwed up his face and set his eyes under a hand, pressing down. “We can... We’ll deal with this in the morning. Okay? I need rest, you need rest. Dean... I don’t know. He’s a cat, they sleep all the time. He probably wants a nap.”

Castiel nodded shakily.

Sam put a hand on Castiel’s shoulder and used him to push himself to his feet, before offering the same hand to help Castiel up. Castiel looked exhausted, even more so now Dean was out of the room. Sam had learned plenty about Castiel recently, one thing being that he hated to show weakness in front of Dean.

“Sleep in Dean’s bed,” Sam said, with a pressured smile. “We can make up another bed tomorrow. Besides, cats sleep anywhere, and it’s not like he would mind.”

Castiel didn’t ask why Sam assumed Dean wouldn’t mind him being in his bed, but Sam let it go.

“But―” Sam caught Castiel’s shoulder before he turned away, “take a shower first.”

Castiel nodded, no more words to say.

Sam watched him leave, every few steps punctuated by a glance in the direction Dean had left in. Sam could only guess at what Dean was doing now, but he was too tired to find out. He followed Cas up the stairs, and turned the lights off on the way.

This day had been too weird to dwell on. Tomorrow was the day for thinking, not today.

✖✖✖

When Dean was satisfied that Sam and Castiel were both asleep, he crawled out of his hiding place in the kitchen, leaving the sack of potatoes and canned food to fend for itself. He’d spent a good hour or so chewing his way into a packet of beef jerky, and now with his stomach half-full and his tiny cat jaw aching like he’d been punched, he leapt up onto the long table in the main hall.

The night kept this place dark, but slats of moonlight from the long windows near the roof allowed one line of silver to grace the marble floors, running parallel to the table. The light was broken by tree leaves, scattered and rushing in a breeze outside.

Even through the concrete, Dean could hear the wind.

His paw pads sank flat with each small step he took, following the table until he came to the place he’d first transformed.

He still felt an echo of that feeling, the sensation of being squashed into a space smaller than should be possible. It felt okay now, he felt comfortable. But spying the mess of clothes across the floor made him feel all sorts of weird.

He leapt down, landing perfectly on two feet, then four. He liked his tail, it kept him balanced without him even having to think about it. This body was so much easier to control than his human form, and that fact still surprised him.

With a forepaw, Dean dug around in the front pocket of his jeans, claws retracted until the moment he finally grasped the buttons of his cellphone, and then he dragged it out with his tiny talons.

Chirping in celebration, he crouched down and learned to use his paws as hands. He had what passed for miniature opposable thumbs, but it was not an easy feat to type on a keypad that insisted on moving about and making his digits slip away from where they were supposed to be.

After an average of six failed attempts per character, and a significant improvement towards the end of the message, he sat back and smiled proudly at the screen.

**To: Charlie B  
At bunker. Need help w Sam, come asap. D**

He sent the text, and purred with relief. Their reinforcement was on her way.

✖✖✖

Kevin dragged his feet as he left his bedroom, scrubbing the back of his hand across his nose. His jaw itched with unshaven hair, and he scratched at it while he shuffled along.

At the end of the dark hall, the bathroom’s oak door was propped open by a few inches - usually it was wide open if the room was free, but it wasn’t occupied, else the door would be fully closed. Morning light made the few visible inches glow with pale yellow.

Kevin pushed the door open, bleary-eyed as he blinked―

“ _MRAWRR!_ ”

“Ahhh, sorry!” Kevin shouted, retreating back into the hallway and slamming the door closed.

He stood in silence for a few seconds, a frown drawing down his face. Perhaps it was just far too early in the morning, but it had seemed - for a second - that Dean was not only squatted over the toilet pan, but was distinctly small and cat-like in appearance.

It confused Kevin for a minute longer as he waited in the hall, but he shook off his presumptions when he heard the toilet flush beyond the door, followed by a thump, then the faucet’s blast of water.

All confusion flooded back, however, when the door started making a scratching noise.

“Dean?” Kevin stared at the door, but it didn’t open. “Um, do you... need help?”

“ _Mow._ ”

Kevin raised his eyebrows. That was unmistakably Dean’s voice. A cat’s meow, but... in Dean’s voice. He didn’t sound particularly happy.

Kevin opened the door, and Dean trotted out, one foot tall and walking on four water-sodden paws. He looked up at the bewildered Kevin, sneezed, then went on his way, tail sweeping from side to side in his wake.

Kevin watched him go, and remarked to himself that this was not the strangest thing he’d ever seen while living in this bunker. Questions could wait until after breakfast.

✖✖✖

Sam looked up from his book on animal-related curses when he heard the bunker’s secret entrance being opened then shut. He figured the newcomer was a friend as opposed to foe, since foes tended not to use the front door, and the door was pretty well warded in any case.

“Hell-oh-ohh?” a woman’s voice called, approaching the open archway that led to where Sam sat in the hall. Sam perked up some more, recognising Charlie.

He stood, beaming as the red-headed delight bounced up, dumping her bags on the nearest table and tottering on squeaky sneakers to run and wrap her arms around Sam.

“Hey,” Sam grinned, squashing the woman until she sighed and leaned back. “What’re you doing here?”

Charlie frowned for a moment, lifting her cellphone up and pointing at it. “Dean texted me. Where’s the fire?”

Sam gaped, then realised what had happened and shut his mouth. “Wow. Okay, uh. Lots to explain. No fire. Technically. Well...” He shrugged slowly.

Charlie’s perky smile rose again. “Explain, or I start striking matches.”

Sam smirked and pulled out a nearby chair for Charlie to fall into. She slumped, groaned, then hooked an ankle over her knee and began untying her purple canvas shoes.

“Okay, so,” Sam began, sitting down and scanning the nearby area for any sign of Dean, but he saw nothing. “Five days ago, the angels fell―”

“I got that much,” Charlie said, rolling her eyes and tossing a shoe under the table. “It was all over the news, not to mention the road heading out of Wichita. I had to take a two-hour detour because the CIA or NASA or the Republicans shut all the decent roads down while they investigate. Meteor storm shmeteor storm. That, my friend,” Charlie flicked the air with a finger, “was shooting angels.”

Sam smiled bluntly. “Yeah.”

“So then what?”

A long sigh escaped Sam’s nose. “I haven’t spoken to Dean or Cas about it yet, but I think Cas has something to do with them all falling like that. God knows how or why. But anyway.”

Sam licked his lips, still feeling the dry, chapped ridges left over from his downtime. “I tried to―” He grimaced at the memory. “I tried to close the gates. The gates to Hell. Shut everything down.”

Charlie’s eyes widened, and she dragged a clawed hand back through her hair. “And... did you?”

Sam pressed his lips together and shook his head. He didn’t know if his feelings were positive or negative on the matter, but all things considered, even the current outcome was mild compared to all the other routes they could have taken.

“Dean pulled me out of it,” he said, eyes on the illustration in the book he’d been scouring. “Said it was more important that me and him are together than the world being saved.”

Charlie was quiet. There wasn’t a witty quip conceivable that would balance that out.

“Crowley,” Sam said, “is, or may be human. Can’t really tell. He fluctuates depending on his mood. For all I know, he’s just good at acting. But no way we’re letting him out of his manacles, at least until we know for sure.”

Charlie swallowed, pulling her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her skinny jeans.

“But me, I got sick. It - it tore at me, you know? I was bad enough already, I’d been falling apart for _months_...” Sam shook his head, feeling an airy lightness at the realisation that that suffering was over. “Last night I thought I was going to die.” He looked Charlie in the eye, and with a steadfast nod, he finished, “But Dean picked Cas up, and brought him back here. And Cas...” Sam grinned, “saved my life.”

“Some angel,” Charlie smiled. “I can see why Dean likes him so much.”

Sam chuckled, pressing a smile between his lips. “But then...” The smile fell, and Charlie’s fell too when Sam said, “Then something went wrong.”

Rubbing fingers at his forehead, Sam let out a breath. “Cas tried his best, and he did pretty damn good, all things considered. I feel good, I’m not bleeding, the fever’s gone. I’m walking and talking, which―” he huffed in disbelief, “is far more than I thought I’d get.”

“What was the downside?” Charlie asked, in a hollow voice. Her hands fidgeted in worry.

“It’s Dean.”

Charlie glanced at her cellphone, then back to Sam. “Dean texted me saying he needed help with _you_.”

“That’s Dean being Dean, he wouldn’t admit he can’t take care of himself,” Sam said. “The issue right now is that Cas won’t come out of his room - and he’s been in there more than eighteen hours, Kevin went somewhere, and all he told me was that he was going ‘ _out_ ’, and Dean...” Sam gritted his teeth, then looked Charlie in the eye, and told her, “Dean coughed up a hairball this morning.”

Charlie at first seemed relieved, but then her eyes narrowed, reading between the lines. “Too much hair product?”

“Too much fur.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes so much she pulled wrinkles under them. “Cat.”

“Yes.”

Charlie’s lips twitched, and Sam allowed her one smile before he shook his head, and directed her towards the real problem: “So far I’ve got no clue how to switch him back. Cas is out of mojo permanently, Crowley has no intention of doing anything remotely purposeful, and none of the angels feel like dropping in to say hi in this part of the world.”

“Funny, because they’ve said hi everywhere else,” Charlie muttered, somewhat bitterly.

Sam nodded slowly. “Best option right now is to read up as much as I can on surrounding subjects. There’s plenty of lore and accounts of witches turning people into frogs, but that’s more on the fairytale side of things, and any witches who still do that nowadays probably feel like they’re either upholding tradition or they’re doing it ironically.”

“What turned Dean was angel magic, though, wasn’t it?” Charlie said, and Sam hummed his confirmation. “Stuff about witches won’t help you much.”

“It won’t help me at _all_.”

“Can’t you just... hope it’ll wear off?”

Sam pursed his lips. He had considered that, but with that thought came another, a parallel which he didn’t want to think about. “If it does, then, chances are _I_ won’t make it.”

“Oh,” Charlie sighed. “I don’t know what to suggest.”

Sam tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it didn’t come. “Thanks for coming.”

Charlie gripped his hand with her delicate fingers. “I’ll always come when you call.”

“Hey... isn’t that―?”

“Carver Edlund’s _Let It Bleed_? Yeah,” Charlie smirked. “Unreleased notational version, I got myself a limited edition copy.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised she’d gotten hold of one. “I thought I burned those.”

“We fans have our ways.”

Sam looked at her carefully. “You’re scary and you don’t even realise it.”

Charlie became quite smug at that.

“Oh!” Sam stood up, scraping his chair back as he saw Dean trot into the hall. “Dean, come over here and say hello to Charlie.”

Dean was up on the table in a flash, making Charlie startle. She laughed straight away, reaching out a hand towards him.

“Holy crap, Dean,” she muttered. “You still look like yourself.” She wriggled her outstretched fingers like they would somehow attract Dean, whereas Dean was happy sitting a few feet away, staring.

“Um, Dean’s not really into the whole ‘petting’ thing,” Sam told her, gently nudging her arm back to her side. “He keeps his distance.”

Charlie glanced between Sam and Dean, concerned. “He still understands us, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam said, slumping back into his chair and pulling his book closer. “I assume he’s the one who sent your text last night.”

Dean tipped his chin up slightly, proud.

“If he can understand us then he can jolly well get his fluffy butt over here and say hi,” Charlie said determinedly, holding her hand up again. “Dean, don’t make me start _here-kitty-kitty_ -ing you.”

Dean rumbled from deep inside him, rolling his eyes as he got up and padded closer.

“Huh,” Sam said, surprised. “Every time I tried to touch him he panicked and took off.”

“That’s because he’s naked,” Charlie said, stroking Dean’s head only, tickling behind his ears. “He’s not cool with his brother touching all of _this_.” She hovered a hand over the rest of Dean’s body, not making contact with the fur at all.

Dean caught Sam’s eye with a raised eyebrow. _She’s right, you know. You oughta have picked up on that earlier._

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam tutted, turning back to his book, but keeping his eyes on his brother.

Dean’s eyes slowly fell closed, sitting down on the table with his chin tucked into Charlie’s massaging hand. He was definitely smiling.

✖✖✖

So passed another night, largely uneventful.

Castiel left his room to use the bathroom and then get some food and water from the kitchen, but even when Sam called after him, he could tell he wouldn’t get a response. Castiel was shell-shocked, and walked around with a blanket draped over his shoulders, hands trembling.

What Cas was going through right now wasn’t something Sam could acceptably comprehend, but still, he wondered how long it would be until Cas was together enough to deal with the problems at hand. As far as Sam could tell, Cas was the only one who would be able to provide an answer.

Sam packed up and went to bed that night empty-handed and disappointed, ruffling his brother’s ears one last time before he turned in.

There were bigger fish; the world around them was falling to pieces with the addition of angry, broken angels wandering amongst the humans, but nothing could be done about anything until Dean was humanoid again. They’d face their battles together, or not at all. That was the deal.

✖✖✖

Castiel woke up to the sound of scratching. He blinked away the sleep from his eyes, feeling groggy beyond belief. His limbs had become tepid rocks at his side, his head barely part of him.

When the scritch-scritch-scritch went on and on without pause, he levered himself up and thumped his weight onto his feet. He walked into the wall, bumping it with his hands until he found the light switch, sending startling brightness rebounding into the back of his head. It was not unlike being possessed by angelic grace, but alas, upon a few blinks, the power of it faded.

The scratching noise, however, did not fade.

Castiel grasped the door handle and pulled it open, and the insistent cat fell inside the room. Dean looked up at Castiel with a plain concern in his eyes, a blink, and an unyielding stare.

Castiel sighed and sloped backwards when he realised Dean had gained the power of staring equally as hard as Castiel did. “Come in, Dean. It is your room, after all.”

Dean slunk inside, tail held cautiously low, picking his feet up, eyes not leaving Castiel’s face.

“I didn’t break anything,” Castiel assured him, offering a smile as he shut the door behind him. “You have a very comfortable bed.”

“ _Mrmmrm mrom,_ ” Dean said, pouncing up onto the foot of the bed before turning around and sitting down.

He held himself like the depictions of the Egyptian goddess Bastet, tall and sleek, svelte features and well-defined eyes. He stared at Castiel until Castiel moved to sit, falling into the chair at the side of the room.

Castiel bristled his face with his fingers, disconcerted to find his facial hair had grown. It had not grown ever since Purgatory, and prior to that, not since Jimmy had surrendered this vessel completely unto him. This hair was thick and wiry, and it was incredibly unfamiliar.

“ _Mro,_ ” Dean said, blinking coyly at Castiel. “ _Mrm mrmam maw mow?_ ”

“Dean, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Castiel sighed. “I’m... I’m very tired, and I have no power. Unless you can write or use some sort of code, there is no possible way for me to translate.”

Dean looked at him with something akin to sadness in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, however, so Castiel decided to tell him all the things Dean didn’t let him say last night.

“Metatron took my grace,” Castiel said, leaning forward and lacing his fingers together over his lap. He watched Dean for a reaction, but only saw the barest twitch of a whisker. “He used it to fell the angels from Heaven, and as far as I know, they are all as powerless as I am. They were soldiers, Dean, stripped of their ranks for no knowable reason. They won’t be happy. If they find out that this is my fault, that I... _caused_ this? They will kill me, in punishment.” Castiel looked away, to the floor, words sour in his mouth as he added, “God knows I deserve it.”

“ _Mro._ ”

Castiel met Dean’s green oval eyes, seeing how they were slitted with a line of black, partially dilated but still kept thin. Dean blinked, then shook his head slowly. “ _Mro mew meorr―_ ”

He stopped mewling upon hearing his own voice, and snarled in frustration. Castiel couldn’t help but smile, because seeing Dean’s feline form hunch over and start to sulk was nothing short of adorable.

Castiel ran a hand over his own hair, sighing. The touch felt good, like relief from an ache he didn’t know he had. “I fell into a forest about a hundred miles northeast of here,” he continued, voice quiet. “I was the first down; I saw it happening, I saw the angels falling that night.”

He swallowed. The memory stirred a darkness in him, lit only by the sinking lights that he recognised as brothers, sisters. His failures had lit up the world as he brought down the galaxies around him, leaving endless power wasted and strewn throughout unknown places of creation.

He was worthless, and nothing would convince him otherwise. The sight of Dean with his paws tucked under his chest and his tail swept alongside his small body was enough to reinforce that. Castiel’s best friend had been reduced to a helpless creature, and it was all his fault.

He shook his head, not able to look Dean in the eye any longer.

There was a long, long silence, wherein Castiel tried his best to gather his humungous thoughts, too big for his imprisoned mind.

“I’d thought... human beings could survive three days, without food or water.” Castiel smiled without knowing why. “I had water. But I didn’t realise... didn’t realise how hard it would be. To feel hunger. It claws at you.” He gestured at his stomach, hands curled into crooked shapes, demonstrating the tearing, angry feeling he’d felt inside him. “It made me into something I didn’t know I could become so quickly.

“At the start I thought I would be fine. I could give my donations to other homeless people, I could be selfless, because I still have penance to serve. I’ve done wrong, Dean, I’ve done things I’ll never be able to fix. So I offered my food to others, I gave away my money.

“But it got to me. The hunger. It’s a small Hell, inside you. No matter how absolutely I knew I would survive, that going without food wouldn’t kill me, I still needed it. Nothing made me stop wanting.

“I spent... three days... wandering about. _Stealing_ clothes, money... food. I accepted the generosity of passing strangers.” Castiel pressed his mouth into a line, trying to hide the wobble that his emotion caused. “I feel ashamed. Bearing this humanity makes me feel shame.”

Castiel looked up, meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean looked back at him with a slow disdain.

Castiel swallowed, nodding, seeing the thoughts in the cat’s eyes. “There was a part of me... that still thought I was better than you. Despite believing for so long that humans were as great as God told us, some rebellious speck in me disagreed. Maybe that’s why I feel so wretched now that I’m one of you. I’ve fallen beyond equal standing. I’m beneath you. Maybe I have been all along, and I never saw it until now.”

Confessing his feelings of worthlessness to a cat felt sickening, because cats were surely even lesser than humans. If the cat was anyone but Dean Winchester... No, Castiel wouldn’t even allow himself to toy with such a thought. He already felt degraded enough.

Castiel raised his eyebrows, shaking his head as he leaned back in his chair, elbows perched on the armrests on either side of him. The t-shirt he wore did not do much to help him feel warm, and he longed to reach for the blanket that Dean was resting on.

“I am... sorry,” Castiel said at last, staring hopelessly at Dean. Even saying that felt empty. “That word barely has a meaning any more. I can’t...”

He let out a terrible, weak breath, wafting a hand in a pointless swipe, “I can’t express...”

He tried. He tried to explain. He found words eventually, and he poured them all out in messy, broken sentences, spilling every confession to the cat who sat quietly on his bed, watching and listening to him speak.

He told Dean about how he _felt_ things. He felt pain and he felt urges and needs, and he now understood tiredness and hunger the way it was for humans - but he also felt an almighty sorrow.

There were people in the world who had done fearsome deeds. Murderers, rapists, traitors, liars, sinners of all kinds. There were some wrongs that had no price among those: personal weaknesses, addictions, things that hurt nobody but their originator.

And then there were crimes like the ones Castiel had committed.

Humans did not have a judgement for these things. There could be no courtroom, for no punishment was equal to the crime. He had committed mass murder, genocide, thievery of items that had no comparable worth in human understanding. He had betrayed those whom he loved, on two separate planes of existence.

It was unfathomable, even to Castiel.

All Castiel could do was live each day trying to be a better person. Regret shadowed his every move, and the knowledge that he could never be forgiven rested solidly under his footsteps.

Even when he died, he came back. Something _brought_ him back.

He had come to realise, each time it happened, that he was being brought back as punishment. Forced to live each day with those heavy footsteps and shadowed regrets. He would serve out his sentence until the end of time, if need be.

“The worst part about it is that I will be alone by the end of it. Even now... I feel as if I’m already alone.”

Dean only stared.


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel eventually crawled back into bed, drained from his emotional upheaval. Dean jumped off the bed when Castiel crawled in, because even though it was _Dean’s_ bed, it didn’t feel right to share it.

No, maybe that wasn’t true.

He settled in the chair that Castiel had just vacated, and in the dark, he listened for Castiel’s slowing breaths.

It was _his_ bed. He wanted to share it, and that desire had nothing to do with the feline urges he’d felt since he became a cat. The need to rub against people’s legs came as second nature, but Dean had always been good at repressing his urges. For two days he’d looked at ankles longingly, glad nobody could see how badly he wanted to mark his family with his scent. _Mine, mine, mine._

What he felt now, this desire, it came from far more basic needs. The need to sleep, primarily. His compact body became weary too quickly; it was powerful for mere moments, but it burned out like a sparking wick, and for so many hours of the day, his instinct was to find a quiet place and rest.

He made do with the chair for now.

Castiel’s breath rushed against the pillow he lay on, hot air on cotton. Dean could hear it, and he could even hear Castiel’s stomach digesting the food he’d eaten. He could hear the wind outside, howling through a distant hole in the roof. There were birds outside, and he could hear them too. Footsteps on marble, far away.

Castiel had been in this room for almost thirty-two hours. Sam was okay on his own - Kevin and Charlie were keeping him company, but Dean was here because he was worried.

He’d been worried from the start. He’d seen Castiel waiting in the bus station and immediately wondered where he’d left his clothes, what he’d eaten, if he’d even eaten at all. So many things to worry about. But Sam had been his primary instinct, then. Now that that had seemingly blown over, Dean moved on to Cas.

God, he was in a bad state. Even if Dean had been able to speak comprehensively, he wouldn’t have known what to say to him.

Dean stayed alert long enough to hear Kevin and Charlie laughing in the distance, making breakfast together. Sam was shuffling around nearby; Dean wasn’t sure what his brother was doing, but didn’t spare him much thought.

Without windows, this room was incredibly dark. Dean knew from experience that even with the light coming under the door from the hallway, Castiel was practically blind in here.

But Dean? No.

As a cat, he could see everything. He could see the light touching the edges of the blanket heaped over Castiel’s body, the swell of his bicep where it rested outside the cover. He could see the green hue that painted one side of the room, coming from the numbers on the alarm clock beside the bed. Even with everything drenched in darkness, he could _see_.

It was incredible. If he wasn’t so convinced that being small and breakable was a bad thing, these feline senses were undeniably an asset to a hunter. He’d never run faster, nor jumped higher, nor chased moving lights with such absolute agility. This curse was a blessing, in some ways.

Even these new, foreign urges... there was something he liked about them.

He hopped off the chair. Castiel’s breath hitched, then flattened once more, sleeping.

Creeping forward, Dean sprung up on his back legs and landed light-footed at the end of the bed. The memory foam squashed under his paws almost imperceptibly, and he felt like he was walking through a warm, dry bog as he trod closer to Castiel’s sleeping form.

He could smell Castiel’s scent all over his sheets. There was a note of otherworldliness to it, just as equally as he smelled like earth, like dirt and fallen leaves. Pumpkin spice, cinnamon. Dean recognised scents and linked them to things he already knew, but the fact was that he’d never smelled Castiel quite like this before.

Dean rubbed his cheek along the blanket that covered Castiel’s hip. _Mine._

He didn’t need to think twice about marking now, because Castiel wasn’t awake to notice. Dean would have balked and shied away from doing this, had he been human. But now it was natural. It was important. Castiel was his, the same way that the blanket was his.

His sliding cheek was followed by his whole body, all along his right side, pacing up towards Castiel’s face. His hip and tail glided across the blanket, and it felt _nice_. He liked to touch.

His whiskers trembled, sensing the shift as Castiel murmured in his sleep. Nuzzling his forehead against the folded top of the blanket, Dean shut his eyes, smiling to himself. Castiel smelled so _good_. Dean flopped down on his belly and kept nuzzling, lying alongside Castiel’s bulk.

“Dean...”

Dean sniffed, lifting his head. _You’re awake?!_ It came out as a garbled, sharp sound, but Castiel only chuckled in reply.

Dean almost froze as he felt a large, warm hand descend upon his head, pressing his ears down to his skull. The hand shifted, stroking to his shoulders.

Dean stared at Castiel’s face, alarmed by how big he was close up. His eyes crinkled at the corners, amused by Dean, but Dean knew those eyes too well to miss the lingering sadness and the ache that Castiel displayed.

Castiel petted him again, just his head. Dean relaxed, setting his chin down against his front paws. It felt better when someone else touched him. This was better than ankle-twining.

Castiel’s deep voice came rumbly and low as he murmured, “You thought I was asleep, didn’t you.”

Dean blinked once, feeling a curious pang of shame.

Castiel’s hand dragged over Dean’s shoulders again, thumb between the two pointed blades. Dean sank further into the bedspread, holding back what would have been a pleasured moan. Castiel’s hand was firm and decisive, and to Dean this was like a massage, making him relax even when he ought to have scarpered already.

“Why don’t you purr, Dean?” Castiel whispered. “I thought cats liked to purr.”

Dean huffed. To purr was to let his guard down, and there was no way he was going to do that.

Castiel never got a proper response, but apparently he made it his mission to make Dean purr, because then, his hand slid away from Dean’s head and shoulders, and pressed firmly all the way down his back.

Dean squirmed, rolling down into the blanket under him, eyes closing. It felt like an embrace, flaring warmth and beautiful pressure all through his body. His breath almost stopped so he could savour the second time Castiel did it, then the third.

The fourth time Castiel’s fingers bumped over Dean’s haunches, and Dean _groaned_ , because holy _fuck_ , it felt like the Northern Lights were possessing him. It wasn’t even good the way sex was good, but like the most fucking intense head massage ever. All over his body.

Castiel was smiling as he stroked, Dean eyed him with his dizzy night-vision. Curse him, Dean thought. Curses on Cas for making Dean want this to never, ever, ever stop.

When Castiel tucked his fingers under Dean’s chin and rubbed him there, Dean gave in. He rolled onto his side and shut his eyes, head lolling against Castiel’s inner arm like it was a pillow. Castiel set his hand against Dean’s fluffy belly, but rather than rubbing, he pulled him, dragging him closer.

Dean didn’t fight it. This was his bed, he reminded himself, so it was his right to sleep in it, whether Castiel was beside him or not.

Castiel curled around Dean’s smaller body protectively, an arm hanging over and holding him. Dean didn’t let himself purr, but he wasn’t immune to the realisation that he really, really wanted to. Yet, he figured Cas would already guess that he was down for this cuddling thing by the fact he hadn’t pulled away.

Cas was so _warm_.

They settled like that, Castiel giving an occasional ruffle to Dean’s tummy fur. Dean again listened as Castiel’s breath began to slow. He took his time to inhale Castiel’s scent and memorise every part of it, even the tang of his sweat and the musk of his skin. It felt satisfying.

But all the warmth and satisfaction ended when Dean heard Sam cough.

Dean leapt out of the bed like a shot, yowling for Castiel to open the door.

Castiel muttered and sat up. “What’s going on, Dean?”

_Sam!_

Castiel flopped upright, hands on the desk at the side of the room, bumping the typewriter as he navigated towards the door. Dean dodged his clumsy feet, scratching at the bottom of the door until finally Castiel got it open.

Dean darted into the hallway, following the _coff! - coff! - coff!_ of Sam’s blood-raw throat and shaking shoulders. Dean ran with his tiny heart pounding in his chest, in time with his flashing legs, all the way to Sam’s bedroom.

Dean scratched at the door, yelling for his brother. _Sam, let me in!_

Sam was still coughing though, and Dean knew that cough - Sam couldn’t move for the lack of breath.

Dean turned to run to get Castiel, but was relieved to see Castiel already hurrying to meet him, bare feet thumping heavily onto the marble. His face had run pale, and Dean almost regretted having pulled him out of bed so quickly, but none of that mattered right now, only Sam.

Castiel knocked on Sam’s door, but he too heard the grating wheeze, and didn’t wait for a response before opening the door wide.

Dean leapt onto Sam’s bed, climbing into his brother’s lap. Sam curled over him, still coughing, body trembling and pulsing in reaction to the force that pushed blood from his mouth. Tissues lay discarded around on the carpet, highlighted with fresh red.

Castiel touched his hand to Sam’s shoulder, easing him up from his folded position. From his place on his brother’s thighs, Dean now saw Sam’s eyes, and his heart clenched to see them clouding over with cataracts like before, red-rimmed, dark circles below them.

_Sammy..._

Sam panted for breath and grasped Dean’s scruff for reassurance, a pained frown pinching his face as he tried to focus on Dean’s face, struggling to do so. “M-morning, Dean.”

_Don’t you ‘morning’ me, you look like you just crawled out of someone’s grave._

Dean didn’t even mention the fact that all he could smell on Sam was death and blood. If he had to take a guess, when Sam had been soulless, he might have smelled a bit like this. Dean’s horrific conclusion now, therefore, was that Sam’s soul was what was bleeding. Cats were more perceptive of these things than Dean ever believed possible.

Castiel thust a glass of water into Sam’s hand, and Dean realised Cas had left and come back, and Dean had been so wrapped up in Sam that he hadn’t even noticed.

Sam downed the water like he was parched of thirst. Castiel had to remove the glass when he was done, because Sam kept trying to drink, leaving a bloody lip-print on the glass.

Castiel went to get more water, and Dean made an effort to keep track of him this time, listening for his footsteps.

“Guess... my future’s looking less bright,” Sam rasped, smiling weakly at Dean. “I thought this miracle would hold.”

_Yeah. Well, it’s not holding._

Sam bumped his eyebrows up, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. He didn’t look as bad as he had a few days before, but he’d certainly been this frail a week ago. If Dean calculated right, Sam might only have three or four days until he was catatonic again.

There was nothing Dean could do about it, while stuck in this body.

“D- Don’t blame Cas,” Sam sat, nudging Dean’s fluffy cheek. “If he didn’t do... what he did... then―” A brutal cough ripped from Sam’s lungs, leaving a splatter of blood down his chin. “Then... I wouldn’t be alive right now. He bought me a few days.”

Dean nodded, knowing that was true. _If only he didn’t kitty-fy me at the same time._

He let Sam tickle his ears, glad to hear Sam’s pounding heart lessen its frantic, thumping volume. He was calming down, and with the calm came a clearer colour in his eyes.

Dean perched himself on his back legs and put his front paws on Sam’s chest, looking up into Sam’s eyes to examine him.

_Huh. You look a bit better._

Sam blinked a few times, realising at the same time what Dean was telling him. “I feel better?”

 _Think it was the petting?_ Dean asked awkwardly, not quite willing to admit it. Part of him was kinda glad Sam couldn’t understand a word of his mewling.

Castiel came into the room and offered Sam the second glass of water. “Sorry this took so long, I had to wash the blood out of the glass.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam smiled, scruffing Dean’s shoulders as he lifted the glass to his lips. He swallowed once, twice, then sighed and gave the half-full glass back to Castiel. He looked down at Dean, and Dean smiled back at him. “I feel pretty good.”

“Yes, I―” Dean looked over his shoulder, seeing Castiel shuffle a bare foot, then add, quietly, “Stroking Dean does seem to be somewhat soothing.”

_Aw yeah, I’m a magic cat._

Sam chuckled, scooting his fingers under Dean’s chin to tickle him. Dean closed his eyes happily, smelling a little more brightness and sunshine from Sam now.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you were stuck like this,” Sam mused, mostly in a laughing tone of voice. Dean could easily tell it was a joke, but didn’t miss the flash of truth in Sam’s words.

It wasn’t like Dean hadn’t considered it, weighed up some pros and cons. Even his size could be useful, somehow, but the biggest downsides had to be the refractory time between using bursts of energy, alongside not being able to talk in Human.

“I would miss him,” Castiel said glumly, eyes on Dean. “I like him as a cat, but I do mi-... I mean... I would miss his human appearance.”

Sam smirked, like he saw more to Castiel’s words than Dean did. Maybe Dean didn’t want to see the implication, but he refused to think any deeper on it, because this wasn’t the time.

“If I’m getting sick again,” Sam said with a sigh, “then that means whatever you did with the last bit of your mojo is wearing off. The same could be true for Dean’s cat problem. He might suddenly pop back into humanity, who knows?”

“I hope so,” Castiel murmured. “Not that I hope you get sick again, Sam, but I do hope we get Dean back.”

Sam wrapped his arms around Dean and squeezed. Dean laughed, but was surprised to find the laughter came out as a fierce and hearty purr.

Sam pulled off and beamed down at Dean. Dean glared back with a disgruntled scrutiny. _Don’t you dare._

“Dean, that was adorable.”

_Fuck you._

Castiel was chuckling, and Dean couldn’t even bear to turn around, feeling like he was blushing under his fur.

✖✖✖

Castiel blasted holes in the paper at the end of the shooting range, bullet after bullet after bullet. It was fast and loud, and even through the thick earmuffs he wore, the rebounding clack and crack of the handgun he shot was deafening.

He reloaded, and went again.

He knew how to work a gun; Dean had shown him years ago. But, to be fair, he’d learned far more from old Bobby Singer, may he rest in peace. Dean, while an excellent gunman, had not seemed keen to show Castiel how to handle a weapon.

Having seen more of humanity since then, viewing popular culture through means of the television, Castiel now understood that Dean had been avoiding getting ‘handsy’.

Gun lessons with Bobby had involved a steadying grip on Castiel’s shoulders, aiding hands used to point the gun in the right direction, clear instructions. Dean had fumbled, edged around Castiel, been too afraid to touch.

Castiel could only conclude at the time that Dean did not want to touch him. Dean was not an affectionate man, it had always been clear. Back-slapping was his way of congratulation, a punch on the arm was reassurance. That was how he showed sentiment.

But that knowledge had changed recently. A year ago, Castiel had found himself wrapped in a tight embrace of arms, a hug, one much the same as one Dean would give his brother. Dared he think it, maybe even _closer_ than one he might give his brother. Perhaps it was the detachment from humanity and all its pressures to conform that led Dean to shun the ways in which other men - other hunters - showed affection. Maybe that was why Dean hugged Castiel in Purgatory.

Castiel shot the paper target in the head for the sixth time, then reloaded once more.

Leaving humanity behind again, Dean had instead given in to the feline ways. He’d shown affection to Castiel, more than he ever had before. Castiel had felt his miniature breaths and his heartbeat, soft under his hand. They had lain in _bed_ together, albeit for no more than a few minutes.

It was enough to lead Castiel to believe that, beneath all the trappings of his hypermasculinity, Dean truly did crave that affection. He wanted to be touched in ways that were not a mimicry of violence. Only gentle.

Castiel felt better with that thought. He no longer felt like an alien for wishing Dean would touch him. He was not the only one who was starved.

Castiel emptied another clip, adjusting his yellow-tinted protective goggles as he pushed his hand around the tabletop to find an unused block of ammunition. A pat on his shoulder startled him - he swung around, pointing the gun at―

“Charlie,” Castiel breathed, lowering the gun and setting it down, smiling apologetically at the wide-eyed woman before him. “How is Sam?”

“High fever, occasional shakes, but otherwise functioning.”

Castiel nodded, swallowing as put down his earmuffs and goggles, then stared at the table laden with gun paraphernalia. Any time he didn’t have something in his hands, or words to say, the _feelings_ flooded back, and right now, he was heavy with them.

“Um,” Charlie said, catching Castiel’s eye and drawing it upward so they could look at each other. “You and I haven’t formally been introduced.” Charlie stuck out a hand, which Castiel grasped without hesitation and shook.

“I’ve heard some things about you,” Castiel said, managing a small smile in reaction to Charlie’s radiant grin. “Mostly that you’re very good at hunting on the digital plane.”

“That I am,” Charlie said proudly, letting his hand go before grasping his shoulder and squeezing it. “Anything else Dean told you?”

Castiel paused with his mouth partially open. “He is particularly fond of you, if that is what you mean.”

“Aww,” Charlie’s eyes squinched up with a pleasant joy. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes went wide again, and she beamed. “You know, I feel like I know you already,” she said, tapping Castiel on the chest with a light finger. “I’ve read all the Carver Edlund books, including the one where you told Carver Edlund you liked his books, so me talking to you about that is like...” She grasped an invisible shape either side of her head and made the sound of a very tame explosion, eyes opening even wider as she rolled her head exaggeratedly.

“I see,” Castiel said.

“I mean, this is like... an onions versus _Inception_ level of meta.”

Castiel tried to discern exactly what she was saying to him, but resigned himself to the fact that his understanding of that sentence totalled exactly nil.

Charlie looked delighted. “Layers!”

Castiel squinted at her.

Charlie rolled her eyes and grasped Castiel around the shoulders with a slender arm, pulling his head down to beside hers. “We’re gonna be best friends, it’s probably fate. Why else would we both have a standing in Dean’s list of favourite people?”

Castiel smiled, at least glad Charlie thought he was one of Dean’s favourite people. He’d never really considered it so bluntly before, but yes, if he were to narrow down a list (excluding the deceased), he would have to be somewhere in the top ten, after Sam, Charlie, Kevin, and someone Castiel hadn’t met named Jimmy Page. Dean didn’t really know many people personally.

“Anyway, Cas-t’yel, we oughta be doing something about Dean’s furry little problem, don’cha think?” She released Castiel’s shoulders, then booped him on the nose. “Sam’s waiting upstairs, and I have a present to give to Dean.”

Castiel peered at her with rapt fascination. She confused him, but she had an energy about her that he could definitely appreciate the same way Dean did. She reminded Castiel a little of his sister, Anna; perhaps it was the red hair and determined eyes.

Yes, he decided: he liked her.

“My name is Ca _stiel_ ,” Castiel corrected, following Charlie out of the shooting range, hitting the light switch before he closed the door. “You’re pronouncing it wrong.”

Charlie looked over her shoulder, her bright hair flipping up over her shoulder as she strutted down the concrete corridor that led back to the rest of the bunker. “Oh, wow, sorry about that,” she said, offering an apologetic expression. “I only ever saw your name in print, and Dean never says the whole thing.”

“Yes,” Castiel smiled, holding the creaky door open for Charlie at the end of the hall. “Yes, he likes to call me ‘Cas’.”

“You like it, right?” Charlie asked, tapping Castiel on the chest with the back of her hand as they walked side-by-side, only a few feet from the main hall now. “The novel _Metamorphosis_ said when he called you ‘Cas’ the first time, you didn’t even know he was talking to you.”

Castiel felt a sense of nostalgia; that had to have been more than five years ago, now. “It grew on me.” They walked into the warm light of the hall. “Eventually, the nickname became how I differentiated between my life on Earth and my life in Heaven.”

“Which do you prefer, Earth or Heaven?”

The question stumped Castiel.

Heaven was infinite. Castiel’s existence had comprised of countless millennia before Dean Winchester, and he had been powerful up there, in all senses of the word. Dean, and Castiel’s life on Earth, were nothing but a blip on that timeline. And yet, a few years with Dean and Sam had turned Castiel from a rebel fighter with a set of ingrained beliefs and personal morals into a _person_.

Earth has been invaluable to him. Heaven was a place he would have liked to go back to, but it was no longer his home.

Earth... This bunker... This was his refuge now.

“He _llo_ -oo, Earth to Cas-tiel,” Charlie cooed, waving a hand in front of Castiel’s face. Castiel came to, jolting at the realisation that he’d been standing in one place, gazing unseeingly at the far wall of bookshelves.

“Apologies, I was thinking about your question,” Castiel explained, trying to blink away the remaining disorientation. “Between Heaven and Earth, I prefer neither. I prefer to be wherever my family is.”

Charlie tilted her head slightly at that response, then moved her lower lip downward as if thinking of something to say. “Your angel buddies are all on Earth now.”

Castiel inclined his head, walking slowly to the table in the centre of the room, seeing Sam hunched in a chair at the end, with Dean curled in his lap. “Then my place is on Earth.”

And that was all. It was final. He was _home_.

Charlie had given him an odd set of new clarities, and he liked her for that, too.

They approached the table, Charlie going ahead to pet Dean. To both Sam and Castiel, she said of Dean, “I brought him something, I thought maybe you’d like to see.”

Castiel stepped forward, curious. Sam leaned back in his chair, letting Dean pounce off his lap and stride to the centre of the table, where he waited expectantly for Charlie to pull something out of the pocket of her red jeans.

“Ah, here we go,” Charlie murmured. A green-coloured silk cloth drifted in her grip, light and fluttery. She straightened it out, batting Dean’s paw away when he reached for it. “Patience, Dean.”

“ _Moww._ ”

Castiel smiled, enjoying the sound Dean made. Even when he sounded irritable, his feline voice was pleasant to listen to. He sounded... _needy_ , to some extent, and Castiel couldn’t place why he liked that.

Charlie folded the cloth until it was about ten inches in length and stretched thin, then she tucked it around the back of Dean’s neck. Dean tried to look down, but Charlie nudged her fingers under his chin, and Dean then looked straight ahead, letting Charlie tie the fabric around his neck.

“What’s that for?” Castiel asked.

Charlie smirked, and Dean shot her a meaningful look that Castiel wished he could translate. Sam laughed softly, reaching over to stroke Dean’s head before pulling away.

“It’s so he looks pretty,” Charlie said.

Castiel blinked, watching Dean sink down onto the table, ducking his head with a sullen cry of, “ _Mawww._ ” If Castiel took a guess, he would assume Dean was expressing embarrassment.

“I’m not sure he likes it,” Castiel said, edging up to the table and placing his hand on the scarf. It was soft, tied gently, looped in a bow to one side of Dean’s neck. Castiel began to remove it for the sake of Dean’s dignity, but Dean edged away from his hand.

Castiel met Dean’s eye, looking at him questioningly. Dean’s whiskers twitched, and his eyes scooted away, embarrassed again.

“I don’t understand,” Castiel said to Dean. “Do you want to keep it?”

Dean hesitated, not meeting the eyes of anyone. Then, with an almost imperceptible shrug, he looked up and smiled at Castiel. Then he nodded sideways, froze, as if in terror, then shot off the table and ran away like something had startled him. Castiel watched him disappear around a corner, then looked about himself, only to see Charlie and Sam snickering between themselves.

“I... don’t―”

“He’s off to find a mirror,” Sam grinned. “Believe me, he likes it.”

Castiel squinted at the two of them, unsure why Dean would feel that way. “It looked confining. Wouldn’t it strangle him?”

Charlie shook her head, still smiling warmly. “He can wriggle out of it if he needs to.” She met Castiel’s eye, smiling a little wider. “Don’t sweat it. Kitty likes to accessorise.”

That didn’t make much sense to Castiel, but he said nothing else on the matter.

✖✖✖

Dean came back ten minutes later with a noticeable spring in his four-legged step. Castiel had to admit, the scarf’s highlight on his brown fur did look rather handsome.

✖✖✖

Kevin went with them when they went out the next day, but insisted it was only because he needed a break from translating the stupid tablets. Charlie had gotten to know him well enough over the past day to understand that he really wanted a goldfish. She was prepared to buy the kid anything he needed in order to have some decent company, because god knew how often Dean and Sam abandoned him.

“But remember,” she said, cranking the handbrake on her beloved yellow boxcar, pretending she didn’t hear the engine grinding, “I’m on a budget here, so keep it under three hundred bucks, all right?”

“Got it,” Kevin said. “Don’t worry, my mom never gave me an allowance, so I’m good with keeping the cost to a minimum. Pocket change, I could do this with pocket change.”

“I’d pay more than pocket change to see that happen,” Charlie smirked.

Kevin got out of the car first, standing in wait until Castiel had unfolded himself from the back seat and took the door from Kevin’s hand to close it.

Charlie closed the driver’s side door, inhaling Kansas’ early summer air and looking around. The pet store ahead of them shone in the sunlight, its yellow paint faded, windows decked with advertisements and lost pet fliers. Charlie could already hear the yaps of young puppies and the chirps of colourful birds coming from inside.

From the corner of her eye, Charlie saw Castiel straightening his clothes. He looked like an odd duck in his jogging pants and old t-shirt - the pants appeared as if they’d been pulled out of a dumpster, and the t-shirt was definitely one of Dean’s - but he was clean-shaven, which made him seem less like a hobo.

Charlie left the car unlocked, because a lack of central locking made it a hassle to make an emergency getaway, should the need arise.

She led their small troupe through the sliding doors, breathing in the fresh scent of pine bedding and chlorine. “Ahh, nothing like a good pet store to wake you up in the morning.”

“It’s the afternoon,” Castiel corrected her. Then he paused. “I think.”

“You slept for sixteen hours,” Charlie smiled. “Sam told me Dean got pretty antsy when he couldn’t get into your room.”

Castiel looked away from Kevin, who had wandered off towards the row of blue aquariums. “Antsy?”

“Upset that he couldn’t sleep with you.”

Castiel almost looked like he was going to laugh. “That he couldn’t sleep in his own bed, you mean.”

“No, no,” Charlie said lightly, leading Castiel past the budgie cages, aware Castiel’s attention would be largely drawn to them rather than herself. “He threw a hissy fit because Sam didn’t cuddle him right.”

“That doesn’t sound like Dean,” Castiel said, worriedly, his eyes fixed on Charlie. “Do you... Do you think he’s losing himself?”

“What, becoming more like a cat than a person? Nah. He’s just... really attached to you.”

Castiel didn’t seem to believe it.

“Look,” Charlie said, taking Castiel’s wrist with her hand, pulling him onward, “Whatever’s going on with you, it’s making Dean worried. He has a ton on his plate, what with Sam falling apart, and him being a cat and all. That’s why he called me in, I’m the Merry to his Pippin. But you―” She turned around, putting her hand flat on Castiel’s chest. “He needs to see you to know you’re okay. You’ve been sleeping so much, and when you’re not there, there’s nobody to help us find a cure - both for him and for Sam.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel’s voice shook, “I - I’ve been so tired, I didn’t even realise I’d been gone for so long. I didn’t even get hungry.”

Charlie looked him steadily in the eye. “I know you’re tired. I know everything you did, okay, and I know _why_ you did it - _The Man Who Would Be King_ was written from _your_ point-of-view, so I saw it all from your perspective. I know everything that’s resting on your shoulders, including the stuff from the last couple of years. Sam caught me up on the most recent goings-on.

“But just ask yourself something. What’s making you tired, is it exhaustion? Because that’s human, that passes. And if it’s that, then you ignore it. You drink some coffee, and you push forward and help your family out, because they need you right now.” She shook her head, finishing with, “But - if it’s not that, then what is it?”

Castiel mouthed on nothing, his eyes switching their focus between each of Charlie’s. He didn’t answer.

Charlie sighed, smiling softly. She’d been there, she knew what depression felt like. “If it’s not your body, then it’s your mind. And that’s what Dean sees, that’s what he wants to save you from. But he can’t help you if you’ve locked your door and shut the world out.”

Castiel’s face had washed over with anguish. It was like he only now recognised what Charlie asked, and realised the latter was true.

Charlie patted his chest, swiping her hand away as it fell. “He cares about you. More than you realise. When he gets preoccupied with Sam, that doesn’t mean he cares about you any less. I am sorry to say that, yes, you might always come second, but Sam’s his little brother, and you’re his―”

Charlie lost her words there, because she didn’t know what to call Cas. Maybe that was what the line in _The End_ meant, when Cas didn’t want to be labelled. Maybe Dean never called him ‘boyfriend’, or ‘lover’, or ‘that guy Dean would never tell how he feels because Dean is an idjit’.

But Castiel bypassed the stunted expression, instead searching for another explanation: “You really believe he cares that much about me? He has no use for me, I can’t even cook properly. Although - I did make him and Sam sandwiches once.”

Charlie smiled, tugging Castiel by the front of his t-shirt towards the cat toys. “Cooking can be learned.”

Castiel nodded after a moment. “I can learn to cook. I ought to be useful.” Charlie noted the unsaid ‘ _then he’ll keep me_ ’ at the end of the sentence.

She rolled her eyes. She knew these guys personally, and she knew Sam, and Sam had anecdote aplenty to share with her on the relationship between his brother and the angel. Dean didn’t keep Cas around just because of his powers. Sure, it might look that way to the untrained eye, but Charlie’s eye was far from untrained. One day Cas would realise that all the _useful_ ness was a bonus to Dean, the main seller being that Cas was _still with him_ after all these years.

One day Cas would see it. But it was not this day.

Charlie almost lost Castiel to the sign that explained about cats and catnip, but she caught his elbow and stood with him while he read.

“Get him a few mice,” Charlie suggested, picking up a felt-fabric shape with rounded ears and plastic whiskers. “Bet you anything he’d appreciate it.”

Castiel picked up a blue mouse. “I think he might prefer to only have one. And have it be a special one.”

Charlie beamed. Whether subconscious or not, Cas totally got that part of it.

They wandered over towards the aquariums, where Kevin stood, arms folded.

“How’s it going?” Charlie asked, nudging the kid on his side. “Found anything you like?”

“Piranhas are cool,” Kevin said, conversationally. “So’re the turtles. But you can’t really get _friendly_ with piranhas, you know? I want something that likes me but is happy to bite other people’s hands off.”

Castiel made a thoughtful noise. “I think a dog―”

“I’m not buying a dog.” Charlie thumped her hand firmly onto Kevin’s shoulder, squeezing the cloth of his hoodie. “Something that won’t need booster shots or daily walkies.”

“All right,” Kevin said, quietly.

With a sigh, Charlie turned away, going to fetch a wire basket to help her carry all the crap she foresaw them buying later. The blue catnip mouse went in first, almost jarring itself between two of the thin rungs. Charlie adjusted it so it wouldn’t fall, then looked up―

“Cas!” she squeaked.

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “Apologies. Dean says I do that too often.”

“Damn right you do,” Charlie huffed, wanting to be amused but still finding herself in a mild state of alarm. “Dean ever tell you that you oughta wear a bell?”

She crossed the floor of the pet store, passing the instructive leaflets on different types of pets, then the overly expensive glass aquariums. She heard Castiel’s footsteps behind her, scurrying to catch up. He pulled level with her as she neared the cat food section.

“He did, actually. But yesterday I heard Sam telling Dean the same thing. Being feline has... hmh, apparently gained him some traction in the way of appearing and disappearing at will.”

Charlie glimpsed the once-angel’s smirk over her shoulder. “Maybe we should get _him_ a bell.”

Castiel considered this while Charlie considered the food brands before her. “Maybe.”

Charlie let out a long breath, picking up a can with a photo of a cat printed on it, turning it to read the ingredients. Earlier, Dean had insisted - quite loudly - that hamburgers and beef jerky were nutritionally viable foodstuffs for him to eat as a cat, and he had absolutely no intention of eating food _made for cats_.

Charlie smiled at the memory, recalling the off-key wail of despair when Sam overruled Dean and told him, no, he ought to eat something that wouldn’t give his tiny cat belly indigestion.

Charlie made a mental note to pick up a small planter of grass on the way to the checkout.

“What d’you think,” Charlie muttered, showing Castiel the can of food she held. “Fish or chicken?”

“Both,” Castiel said. “He might like to try them and pick his favourite.”

Charlie pressed a flat smile between her lips. “Well, I’m getting the budget brand. Start as we mean to go on, right? I’m not prepared to fund a gluten-free vegan gourmet diet if he’s going to be stuck like that.”

“You think he’ll be stuck as a cat?”

Charlie shrugged, turning her body away from another customer in the same aisle, in case they overheard. “I think it’s a possibility? I mean, sure, the Winchesters bounce back from anything. Dean’ll be fine whatever body he’s in, but Sam... Right now it doesn’t look like Sammy’s...” She stumbled on her words, choking up. “He’s―”

“You think he won’t make it.”

Charlie looked Castiel in the eye. “He’ll make it. Of course he’ll make it. Dean needs him, cat or no cat.”

Castiel looked away, face darkened by what Charlie could only assume was pure guilt.

“Look,” Charlie said, dumping a few cans into the basket, feeling the extra weight pressing the handles into her fingers, “Those two have a shitload of issues between them, they’re both psychologically messed up in ways nobody’s ever put a diagnosis to before. But what Dean has with Sam, that... that co-dependent whatever, that’s not what he needs from you. You don’t need to be his brother. But he does need you.”

Castiel hid his surprise well, but Charlie saw the flicker in his expression anyway, the shadows of his downturned eyes shifting under the warm fluorescent light.

“He needs you,” Charlie said again, recognising that those were important words for Castiel. “And not only for your powers.”

“My powers are―”

“Gone,” Charlie said, with a smile. She smiled because Castiel could figure it out for himself, and he was doing so right now. “Your powers are gone, and guess who’s still hanging around the bunker? Huh?”

She grinned, and tapped him on the back with a hand as she pushed past. “C’mon, big boy. Come help me choose a grooming kit.”

They wandered about in silence, showing each other things they thought Dean might like. They forewent the kitty litter, because, as Kevin informed them, Dean wasn’t about to give up his rights to a real bathroom any time soon.

Into the basket went a cat comb, a plastic ball with a bell in it, and a feathery toy with an elasticated string on a rod, which even enthralled Castiel when Charlie dangled it about.

Charlie stopped Castiel putting a claw-clipper into the basket, despite the pamphlet on cats he picked up saying quite clearly that cats ought to have their claws clipped.

“Trust me,” she said, putting the packet back on the shelf. “He’s a hunter. You don’t take a hunter’s only weapons off him, no matter what species he is.”

After a while spent staring at the mice and rats with Kevin, Castiel quietly remarked, “I’m surprised he isn’t more upset.”

“Who, Dean?” Charlie asked.

“Yes.” Castiel’s eyes tracked the whip-like tail of a rodent as it scampered across to its wheel and began running inside it. “His brother might die, I’m no more than a particularly talkative object used to warm his bed, and he’s stuck in the wrong body. The most he’s gotten upset recently was about the fact that we forgot to fill his water bowl.”

Charlie sagged, taking the back of Castiel’s hand and squashing it reassuringly. “He is upset. He’s just doing what he always does: holding it together and keeping his game face on.”

She paused, then squeezed his hand once more. “You gotta do the same for him, okay?”

Castiel breathed out with a shaky, mirthless grin. “No angel should need this amount of coddling. I’m sorry to make you do this.”

“Shuddup,” Charlie grinned, knocking herself along Castiel’s side. “Call me Lucy van Pelt. The doctor is _in_.”

Castiel looked at her, not understanding. Charlie just laughed and shook her head.

They held hands for a little while, because Charlie wanted to ease that guilty conscience, and Castiel grasped her quite tightly when she tried to pull away the first time. She smiled and held on, glad to serve as placeholder for Dean until the moment was right, and _one day_ , Cas would be holding Dean’s hand instead.

They let Kevin do his own thing, especially when Charlie saw him asking a store employee to see one of the rodents in the glass boxes. Charlie didn’t want to know what this would cost her in the end, but she figured that at least a cage would be cheaper to buy than an aquarium. The Winchesters could totally pay her back in monster-killing, should they survive the week.

Castiel tugged on Charlie’s hand, pulling her away from the puppies.

“What’s up?”

Castiel led her gently, but then let go of her hand. Charlie looked up at the wall he stood looking at, covered with pet leashes and collars, hanging on every hook.

Curious.

Charlie shifted the basket into her other hand, stretching out her sore fingers. When Castiel shot her a bashful smile, she set down the basket and waited patiently.

Castiel gulped, then tipped his head down, frowning at the lowermost line of dog collars. “Do you think he would object?”

“Well, he liked the scarf,” Charlie reasoned. “And how else would we put a bell on him, other than with a collar?”

She felt like she was encouraging things she had no right to encourage. But this was _Dean and Cas_ \- they could decide for themselves what was too much, too soon.

Castiel’s focus grazed the wall, then shyly met Charlie’s eyes. “I... I’ve been told... I heard once―”

Charlie huffed. “Spit it out.”

“In some human subcultures,” Castiel managed, then gulped and looked away.

Charlie saw what he was getting at, but said nothing.

“Collars...” Castiel struggled, but eventually gave in and pushed it all out at once. “Collars could be seen as the equivalent to marriage,” he finished, breathless and blushing.

God, Charlie never thought she’d see the guy like that, hot under the neck of his t-shirt, and actually, properly _nervous_. And not about an apocalyptic war, either.

“How the hell do you even know that?” Charlie asked, intrigued. “Did Dean leave some of his naughty magazines out?”

Castiel’s eyelids fluttered. “I’m not _entirely_ dependant on Dean for my information regarding humanity,” he said. He spoke with a force that left Charlie delighted, finally seeing a glimpse of the part of Cas that Dean dubbed ‘sheriff of Heaven’.

“Aaand?” Charlie prompted.

Castiel looked at her sharply, jaw set firm. “There are certain subcultures which... intrigue me.”

Charlie nodded, pursing her lips. “Hence us standing in the collaring aisle.”

Castiel parted his lips, shifty-eyed. “Yes.”

“Uh-huh. Well.” Charlie bumped the basket at her feet with the toe of her shoe. “Pick something Dean will like, then.”

Castiel blushed again, and Charlie repressed the urge to pull out her phone and take a photo.

“Do you think he would see it as... Um. That is...”

“Do I think he’ll think you’re proposing? Yeah, I think he might. Who knows. Try it and see.”

It fascinated Charlie to see how effortlessly and smoothly Castiel transitioned between the determination and power of ‘Castiel, Angel of the Lord’, to the meek and perpetually confused ‘Please Help Me I’m Lost’.

Charlie remained patient as Cas sifted through the collars, tentative hands only poking and touching their edges, making their bells jingle, but not picking anything up to handle. He shot furtive looks over his shoulder, like he wanted to check that he was doing it right.

Charlie had to admit, the fact he hadn’t chickened out from the ‘proposal’ side of this made her get all jumpy and excited inside. Dean might finally have a chance at happiness, should the rest of this mess straighten itself out.

At last, Castiel pulled a slim black collar off its hook, showing it to Charlie on his outstretched fingers. She laughed, seeing the tapered leather studded with metal points. “Sure,” she grinned. “It’s classic, at least.”

“It looks dangerous but it’s not,” Castiel said, thumbing the silver studs as he smiled. “I think it would suit him.”

“Sure,” Charlie said again. “Wanna stick a nametag on that sweet baby?” She winked at Castiel, but Cas didn’t see it, since he was still staring at the collar.

“Nametag,” Castiel echoed. He looked up, meeting Charlie’s eye. “‘If found, please return to...’?

Charlie shrugged. “Or just his name. We can add protective sigils or something later, just get the tag while we’re here.”

Castiel thought about it, then nodded. He waited for Charlie to lead him then, since he clearly didn’t know how to go about the next part. With a puff of air, Charlie hefted the heavy basket into her hand and began to trudge towards the front desk of the shop. Less than halfway there, her burden was relieved by Castiel’s warm hand. She looked back to see him smiling, eyes twinkling, holding the basket with minimal effort.

“Bet your ass Dean’s gonna love marrying a real gentleman,” Charlie crooned.

She almost missed the hesitant expression that slipped over Castiel’s face, but turned away before she saw too much of it.

At the front desk, she waved an assistant over, who gave her permission to get going with the nametag-maker. There was a blocky machine affixed to the desk, with assorted metal tags in a clear drawer to its side. As Charlie worked the machine to tell it what to carve onto the tag, she gestured at the tags. “Pick something?”

Castiel moved forward, put down the basket, and opened the drawer. He hummed in thought.

Charlie focused on the machine for a bit, poking in the letters D - E - A - N and readying it. Castiel was still fumbling, so in the meantime, Charlie accessed the programming of the machine and corrected a typo or two in the instructions for the users. Satisfied, she then returned to the flashing screen and waited for Castiel to decide.

Not too long after, Castiel sighed in a way that sounded like he’d made a decision. He held up the blank metal tag to show Charlie.

A slow grin spread across Charlie’s face. “A pink heart?”

Castiel hesitated again, fingers unsteady. He curled his hand into a fist, hiding the tag. “Is it not right?”

“I never said it wasn’t right,” Charlie said, meeting his worried blue eyes. “Do you think Dean will be happy to wear it?”

Castiel’s face flooded with undefined emotion, and he looked down into his now-open hand. “I don’t know.”

Charlie waited, silently encouraging him to figure out his own thoughts.

“I _want_ him to be happy to wear it,” Castiel said. He flattened his lips, searching Charlie’s face for an answer she was determined not to give.

“Things have changed between us in the past few days,” Castiel continued, deep voice becoming quiet. “We were both warriors, mid-battle, and now we’ve been cast to the sidelines. Both... transformed. A week ago I never would have even considered what I’m considering now.”

“A week ago he wasn’t sleeping with you.”

Castiel swallowed. “He’s still not sleeping with me. That is, save the few minutes we... rested together, the other night. Our relationship has never been... that way.”

Charlie felt the twitch of a sad, sad smile at the corner of her mouth. Cas was fully aware of how he felt for Dean. He wasn’t stupid or oblivious, only chose to ignore things that might hinder them in the heat of battle. Maybe he was even aware of how Dean felt for _him_ , but was waiting on confirmation to really believe it.

They weren’t in the heat of battle any more. The angels were powerless, and the world was in chaos - as per usual, really - but nothing was trying to kill them right this second. With that newfound ease, Cas had decided he wanted to take their relationship to the next level - which, apparently, involved a studded leather collar fitted with a bell and a pink loveheart.

“If you want to get him that tag, go for it,” Charlie said to him, kindly, putting her hand around his wrist and giving him a small amount of comfort.

Castiel thought for a little while, both thumbs on the blank tag, turning it about to catch the light, throwing a heart-shaped reflection across his face.

“Yes.” Finally, he breathed out, and smiled. “Yes, I want to get him this one.”

And with that, they put the tag into the machine, and watched together in interest as lasers inside cut the letters onto the metal. When it was done, the green light flashed, and Charlie retrieved the new tag, blowing metal dust off its face. Silver letters spelled Dean’s name, bold and clear.

Castiel took the tag from her with tender fingertips, turning it around. Charlie watched his face rather than his hands; he looked happy. For the first time since she’d met him, he didn’t look like the weight of Heaven and Earth were resting on his shoulders. It wasn’t even a striking happiness, it was quiet, and seemed to light him from inside rather than drift into his expression.

She got why Dean loved him, she really did. Having committed treachery or not, he remained loyal no matter what, and he was so very wonderful.

They left all their items at the front desk, and went to fetch Kevin, who returned to them with a flat-packed cage set, and an opaque plastic container with holes in it held in his other arm.

“Dare I ask?” Charlie murmured, handing over her credit card to the very attractive lady behind the desk.

“You can dare,” Kevin said smugly. “Or you might not. But the answer is ‘chinchilla’.”

Castiel wanted to look, but Kevin hit his knees with the packaged cage and made him keel over in pain.

With Charlie’s wallet a couple hundred digital dollars lighter, they left the shop and bundled themselves back into the car, the trunk laden with kitty treats and terrors, things that would amuse and horrify Dean in equal amounts. Kevin held the box containing his rodent in his lap, and Castiel took to the back seat, where Kevin was less likely to break his nose.

Charlie took pride in her troupe; they were adorable, and lethal, in their own small ways. Even her wreck of a car could poison a waterway if need be, and that had to be useful somehow.

✖✖✖

Castiel went ahead and opened the bunker’s door to let the others in, but before he had even closed the door behind them, they were interrupted by a screeching, wailing caterwaul.

Dean skidded into the entrance hallway, eyes wide and his once-pink nose matted with what looked like blood. Castiel dropped everything he was holding and ran after the cat, who led him away from the entrance and into main hall.

Castiel’s heart thumped like a drum in his chest as he chased the streak of brown fur to the couch, realising what had happened.

“Sam!” he panted, figuring out only now that he was human and had therefore lost his breath while running.

Sam lay back on the couch, blood caked in half-dry rivulets from his forehead, eyes weary and half-closed. Castiel set a hand on Sam’s neck, struggling to find Sam’s pulse over his own. Frustrated, Castiel shoved the frantic, yelping Dean off his brother’s chest, and put his ear to Sam’s heart.

_Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum._

Still functioning, but bleeding. “What happened?” Castiel demanded, pulling a wooden chair from the main table and swinging it so he could sit facing Sam.

Sam wheezed, a hand carding through the fluff on Dean’s head. “It... I passed out,” he breathed, voice raspy and weak. “On the stairs. Hit my head.”

Castiel shook his head, pressing his eyes under his hands. “I thought you’d be okay―”

“ _Mawh,_ ” Dean said. Castiel peeked between his fingers to see Dean standing on Sam’s chest again, paws against Sam’s forehead, pressing the green scarf Charlie gave him to the wound to staunch the flow of blood. Dean shot Castiel a furious expression, one Castiel believed he deserved.

“I am sorry,” he said to both brothers, feeling it was worthless. “I’m...” He sighed, clutching his head again. “I’m sorry.”

Charlie came forward, wringing out a wet flannel. “Outta the way there, Dr. Sexy,” she said, shooing Dean, then craning over Sam and starting to clean up his wound. She flicked out a sleek silver flashlight from a pocket, clicking it on and checking Sam’s eyes. “Ahh. Bit of concussion. Don’t sleep too much tonight.”

Castiel lifted his head. “I’ll help.”

Dean made an indignant noise, which Castiel could only interpret as ‘ _Don’t bother, you’ve done enough._ ’

Swallowing, Castiel clarified, “I’ll stay with you tonight, Sam. I’ll wake you up to check on you.”

Sam gave a tight smile. “Thanks.”

Taking a deep breath, Castiel stood up, swallowing down his pounding heartbeat, feeling it finally start to ease. He glanced about himself, wondering what else he could do to help. He noticed that Kevin had made himself scarce, and part of Castiel wished he could follow his lead and hide in his room again. But no. He’d been unavailable for days, and he felt wretched for it. He needed to fix this.

“I’ll start reading,” he muttered. “There has to be something in one of these books that could reverse these effects.” He gestured at the brothers, and at Charlie, who was discarding the bloodied scarf. “Sam is our priority, not Dean.”

Dean chirped in a sour agreement, like that was obvious already.

“What have you tried already?”

Charlie looked up. “To save Sam? Nobody’s tried anything. As far as these two could tell me, you were their last and only hope.”

Castiel’s stomach acid curdled. How could he have failed so spectacularly?

He narrowed his eyes, watching Charlie tend to Sam’s head wound, bitter about the fact that nobody had an answer. “This is a magical, spiritual ailment. No dampened rag is going to help him recover.”

Charlie almost rolled her eyes. “Maybe not,” she said, quietly, peering into Dean’s sad eyes. “But what else can we do, Cas? According to Garth, angel grace existence totals zilch across the whole planet, and Dean has no hands to help me get the ingredients to summon Death. Huh. As if Death would help, anyway.”

“Wh... what about a witch?” Castiel suggested.

“ _Nuaaww,_ ” Dean enunciated. He was quite clear.

“Even if it would save your brother?”

Dean shook his whiskered head, huffing. Sam groaned.

“A god, then,” Castiel said.

Dean, like Castiel himself, didn’t think much of that suggestion. Gods - the lesser ones - were not a safe ball of fire to juggle with.

“Demon?” Castiel whispered.

Nobody heard him, and he hadn’t intended them to hear. Dean would have shut him down, what with his history with demons being what it was.

Castiel had heard tell of a human phrase... what was it? It was easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

He almost laughed to himself, cold, recalling the way keeping secrets from Dean went last time. All the other times. It was a bad idea.

Last time he’d held his tongue, Sam almost lost himself.

This time, it could be different. The whole point was to _save_ Sam.

 _No_ , Castiel said in his head, his own voice, his old, monstrous one. No, he had no right, no place, to go behind Dean’s back and do whatever he wanted. Being in his house, as it were, he ought to abide by Dean’s rules. In Dean’s car, the driver picked the music. In his bunker, Dean picked much more than the music. Castiel was _not allowed_ to disobey.

No demons.

Books, it would be.

Castiel sat down at the long table and picked up the book Sam had already been rifling through, only to find it was about animal curses. Sam had been trying to find a cure for Dean rather than himself.

With a slow, considerative glance over to where Sam lay on the small couch, Castiel closed the book. He stood up, smiling flatly at Charlie as she left the room, and he began his search through the masses of bookshelves that were arranged in rows at the sides of the hall. He didn’t know what to look for, but began a logical search in the section regarding souls.

If he could find a way to stop the deterioration of Sam’s soul, he would. He would stay awake until he found something, damn his fatigue, damn the human requirement of sleep. This body was weak compared to how it used to be, but he would force it to be strong.

His mind, too, would be strong. He needed it to be, or Sam would die, and nobody on this side of the veil could know for sure where a shredded soul would go when it passed on.

He stacked relevant books onto the table, sat down, and started reading.

He soon discovered that his eyes allowed him no end of disappointment, like every other part of him. He skipped lines, he read words wrong. It took him ten minutes to work out that sticking his hand over the parts he hadn’t read yet made it easier, but it was too _slow_.

How did Sam do it? How did he skim a doorstop of pages within a few minutes? Castiel would have asked him, but Sam was snoring.

Once fifteen minutes had passed, Castiel edged up to Sam, breathing out in silence. He rested his hand upon the other man’s shoulder, resolutely ignoring the look Dean gave him with his feline eyes, small body curled on his brother’s chest.

Castiel shook Sam awake as gently as possible, gritting his teeth as Sam’s heavy eyelids blinked open.

“Sam,” Castiel said. “I need to check you’re okay.”

“‘m fine,” Sam grunted.

“How is your head?”

Sam rested his eyes closed, smacking his lips. “Hurts.”

Castiel straightened up, sighing. He was not a medical practitioner, he didn’t know how to deal with concussion beyond not letting the patient fall too deeply asleep. “T- Tell me... how to read quickly.”

Sam frowned, smiling, eyes still closed. “You used’ta flip through pages and read the whole book. I thought that was the whole reason you got Dean’s _Animal Farm_ joke that one time.”

Castiel rested his hand over his eyes. “I can’t do that any more. I have no powers.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam breathed, his face clearing of expression. “Pick... one word and read it. Then... read the next one.”

Castiel deflated, unsatisfied by that. “Thank you, Sam. Go back to sleep.”

“‘Night, Cas.” Sam cracked an eye open. “‘Night, Dean.”

“ _Mow._ ”

Castiel met Dean’s eye as Sam settled to sleep again. “Everything... is so hard, like this,” he said to the cat, feeling the weight in his words. “Believe me, it’s not just you who is disappointed.”

He turned away and sat down, then flipped to the next page of the book. The stack in front of him was as tall as his forearm was long. He rested his elbow on the table, sank his ear against his hand, and dived in once again.

Twice more he woke Sam up at fifteen-minute intervals, both times having no solutions to speak of, getting nothing from Sam besides the confirmation that he was not too badly damaged. Both times, Dean looked at Castiel, and Castiel felt a longing, an ache in his fingers that had him reach to touch, but he never met fur with finger.

His apologies went unspoken, because he still remembered what it was like to have Dean tell him his apologies came across as nothing but a game.

Once the first hour passed, Charlie returned, bearing lunch for herself and Castiel. Castiel thanked her, but did not pause his scouring of the book before him as he shoved oven-warmed pizza into his mouth. He hated that he had to eat, but as far as eating went, eating pizza was not a terrible way to go about it.

“How’s things?” Charlie asked, scooting an unclaimed book closer to herself. “Kevin’s chipmunk’s cage is all set up. He gave it a tiny rock, so it could read its own prophetic tablet.”

“I thought he said it was a chinchilla.”

“Same difference.”

“Actually - while both are classified as rodents―”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Charlie smirked. “There’s a biologist in you somewhere. Smart-ass.”

Castiel didn’t respond to that, since he was unsure how to.

Charlie shook her head, smiling. “Just eat your pizza.”

It was unnerving how much like Dean she was, in some respects.

He did as she said and ate his meal, and was relieved when Charlie soon joined him in his quest with the books. She showed him how to skim-read, how to pick out keywords rather than absorbing the entire book, and once Sam had been re-awakened another three times, every half-hour, Castiel was feeling much better about his research ability. He had eliminated five books, finding them stuffed with nothing but explanations and diagrams on how the soul worked, as well as how demon deals tied into that.

The thought that a demon deal might save them kept popping back into his mind, though.

Every time, he looked over at the snoozing Dean, and shook the thought away.

Four hours in, Dean got hungry, and leapt up onto the table to announce the fact.

“I liked you better when you could open your own food,” Charlie said, bringing Dean’s empty bowl and slopping dish of water into the hall, putting them beside the books so he could supervise their research efforts as he ate. She set down a can of cat food and tugged at the ring top until it scrunched open.

Castiel looked carefully at the can’s label. “Why is it,” he said, “that humans’ food comes in cans with animals printed on them? When you open tuna, you see fish on the label. Beans, there are beans on the label. For cans of fruit, there’s fruit. But...” he gestured at the can that Charlie was now using a fork to scrape a lumpen jelly out of, into Dean’s bowl, “we buy cat food, for _cats_ , and there is a cat on the label. Why are humans not concerned that they are feeding their cats _cat_ meat?”

Charlie chuckled, raising her eyebrows. Dean, who was sitting a good few feet away wearing a disgusted expression, then looked twice as disgusted.

“God knows,” Charlie sighed, stabbing what remained in the can with the fork. “Dean, come here and eat.”

“ _Mueugh._ ” Dean stuck his tongue out.

“I’m not giving you pizza. Eat this.”

Dean looked at her with such a watery-eyed, pleading expression, that Castiel cracked a smile.

“It smells nice, Dean. You like meat,” Castiel said.

Dean tucked his tail around his paws protectively. “ _Meu_ gh.”

Castiel reached for the fork in the can, pulling it out. He peered at it, seeing dots of brown jelly and the occasional scrap of what looked like a grainy meat. It smelled somewhere between appetising and repulsive, and Castiel curled his lip in understanding; Dean didn’t want to eat this, and neither did Castiel.

But Dean needed to eat, and pizza was not on his menu.

A few days prior, Castiel had been a stranger to needing food to survive. Everything was gross to him, but he’d come to like some things. Coffee, he’d enjoyed long before. Cat food was a product of the Earth the same way coffee was, was it not?

Castiel stuck out his tongue and set this fork against it. He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tasting the coldness and the meatiness and the pure _not human food_ -ness of it. He stuck the fork back into the can, and pushed the can away.

“Dean, would you like some pizza?”

Dean perked up immediately, and pranced his way to Castiel’s side, knocking his forehead against Castiel’s chin. Castiel laughed, setting his hand on Dean’s back, a rush of warmth and sparkling happiness curling its way through his body for reasons he understood but didn’t care to name. Dean nudged his head under Castiel’s throat, and Castiel closed his eyes, so happy for that one moment.

Dean pulled away, ducked down, and plucked Castiel’s pizza off his plate with his pointy teeth. He winked at Castiel, then trotted off down the table, tail crooked at the tip. Castiel’s eyes only lingered on his scrotum for a moment before he looked away, smirking.

“For the record,” Charlie said, catching Castiel’s eye with a severe sternness that Castiel had not been expecting, “when Mommy makes a rule, Daddy doesn’t get to overrule her. This bunker might be filled with the dipshits who grew up in a John Winchester-flavoured patriarchy, but that ain’t the case any more. Capiche?”

Castiel tilted his head. “I don’t un―”

“You understand perfectly,” Charlie snapped, almost playful, but certainly dangerous. “I said don’t give him pizza and you gave him pizza.”

Castiel slowly closed his open mouth. “Apologies. It won’t happen again.”

Charlie harrumphed, somewhat smugly. “You bet your butt it won’t.”

They read in silence for five minutes or so, until the smell of cat food became too revolting to bear, at which time Castiel picked the can up and carried it to the kitchen, holding his breath so he didn’t have to be reminded of how unappetising it was.

He left it on the kitchen work bench, unsure where to put it, and was about to return to Charlie and the unconscious Sam when he heard what was unmistakably the sound of retching.

He sighed, already knowing how things had gone. Regrets were more common for him than brain cells, it seemed.

He opened cupboards and looked under tables, but eventually found Dean huddled under a weapons cabinet at the side of the kitchen, staring at a pile of mush that had once been pizza.

“Come on, Dean,” Castiel said kindly, offering him a hand. “We’ll find you something else to eat.”

It took Dean a while, but eventually he crawled out on his belly to meet Castiel’s hand. His tail was held low, his spine slack, like it was drooping to the floor. He looked as if he was about to cry, and it was the first time Castiel had seen proper indication that Dean was upset with his own predicament.

Castiel picked him up, cradling him in his arms. Dean was weighty, and his clawed feet struggled for a moment until they found purchase on Castiel’s forearm. Castiel rested a hand over Dean’s head, not petting, but holding him steady in reassurance that he felt he wasn’t quite qualified to give.

Dean sighed and flopped closer, fluffy cheek on Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel turned his head and rested it on Dean’s head, in turn.

They stood like that for a while, maybe entire minutes. Castiel absorbed the sweetness that Dean’s present body afforded him in this embrace, and Dean, presumably, took comfort in Castiel’s closeness. Maybe this could count as an apology, since words were never enough.

At last, Castiel took in a deep breath, then let it go again. “I’ll clear up the mess later. For now... let’s find you something to eat.”

Dean landed on his paws effortlessly when Castiel turned him back to the ground, and together they explored the kitchen cupboards. Dean refused tuna, as well as canned sausages - and, remarkably, even scoffed at the hamburger meat in the freezer - but Castiel was relieved when Dean finally gave a thoughtful nod in the direction of the chicken egg that Castiel showed him.

“I don’t know how to cook,” Castiel said, forlornly.

Dean jumped up onto the work surface, and waited until Castiel had a cooking pan in his hand. Castiel did as his common sense told him, affirmed by the fact that Dean didn’t squawk at him for anything.

Dean turned the stove on for him with a clumsy paw, and Castiel hastily worked out how to strike a match against the hissing gas.

Once heated, the pan went unoiled, which Dean tilted his head at, but Castiel assumed that cat stomachs would not take kindly to heavy grease. He did, however, allow a dollop of butter, but only because Dean threatened to shed fur on it if he didn’t add it to the pan.

Dean fidgeted as the butter simmered at its edges. Castiel had to admit, there was something exciting about this.

Dean prodded at the egg, indicating that it was time to put it into the pan. Castiel raised it over the stove, and stuck his thumb into the shell, letting the clear and yellow fluid pour down and settle into a messy slop.

“ _...Mow,_ ” Dean said, unimpressed.

Castiel tossed the crushed, empty eggshell into the sink and washed his hands, not enjoying the slimy feeling that the egg left on his skin. “I’m not as adept at this as you, Dean. One day, maybe.”

He turned in surprise as he heard a rattle and a thump, and stood there with the water running as he watched Dean dragging a cooking implement with his mouth over to the pan. He flipped the wide end of the tool into the pan, and began to scrub at the egg, mixing it.

Castiel turned off the tap and dried his hands on his shirt, going forward to help Dean. “You’ll break your teeth like that.”

“ _Meow._ ”

Castiel smiled, recognising a proper cat sound from Dean for the very first time. “Yes.” Not that he completely understood anything Dean said, but it was nice to pretend he and Dean were having a legitimate human-to-cat conversation.

Castiel cooked the egg until Dean headbutted him, and then he turned the stove off and scraped the burned, scrappy-looking results onto a clean saucer. Dean seemed delighted, hopping off the kitchen surface and scampering ahead, looking back once, twice, three times, to check that Castiel was following.

With a pleased sigh, Castiel set the plate onto the table in the library, and Dean purred as he strode past, rubbing his entire left side along Castiel’s middle. Dean tucked in, his haunches low and his eyes shut as he made a happy, happy eating noise.

“Huh,” Charlie said, looking at Dean.

Castiel smiled proudly.


	3. Chapter 3

The day wore into evening, and the evening wore into night; Charlie drove out with Kevin and brought back a Turkish meat platter, which Dean seemed appreciative of - enough to eat without sneering first.

Castiel kept a good eye on Sam, waking him up to eat, reminding him to go to the bathroom, helping him hobble there and back. Dean scurried at their heels, and stood guard at the door when Castiel insisted Sam leave it unlocked in case anything went wrong.

Charlie called it a night long before Castiel was ready to, and Kevin took over, claiming the two divine tablets in their possession were “shit” and “ought to be thrown into Mount Doom at least four times”.

Kevin was surprisingly quiet company - that is, compared to his rodent, which chattered and bounced about inside its cage. Even though it was just a baby, its grey form was dumpy, and far bigger than Castiel had thought it would be: it was about the size of his entire hand, and looked quite heavy. Its short, frayed tail followed its movements around like a tiny nine-tails. It looked like a mouse, or a rat, with big black eyes and fat cheeks, and it chirruped at Castiel when he poked his fingers towards it, curious.

“Have you named it?” Castiel asked.

“Her. It’s a her,” Kevin said, not looking up from his book. “And not yet.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Death Ray. Maybe something like Laser Dynamite or - I don’t know - Chinchillin’.”

Castiel pursed his lips and considered the creature. “Grace.”

Kevin turned the page of his book. “No.”

“What’s wrong with that name?”

Kevin looked up with a stark, unfazed look in his eyes. “When you get a pet, you get to name it. My chinchilla. Mine.” He smirked, shifting his shoulders as he turned back to the book. “You have Dean.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, examining the flop of Kevin’s black hair where it covered his face. “I didn’t get to name Dean. And he’s not―”

“Not what? Not your pet?” Kevin looked far too amused. “Yeah, he totally is. Charlie told me you bought him a―”

“Kevin!” Castiel snapped, cutting across the rest of his sentence. Sheepishly, Castiel lowered his eyes. “He can hear you.”

Speak of the devil, Castiel thought, seeing Dean pounce up onto the table. He’d been keeping Sam company for a few hours, but he knew he was being discussed.

Dean gave Castiel a curious, scrutinising once-over, then turned to Kevin, flicking his tail. “ _Mow?_ ”

Kevin parted his lips, unsure if he was going to be allowed to speak.

Castiel shook his head. “It’s a surprise,” he said, but that argument felt weak. He harboured a certain amount of shame regarding the collar he’d bought, and he didn’t want Dean to know. If he didn’t know, there remained an opening for Castiel to retract his offer.

Dean still looked expectantly at Kevin. Kevin saw the determinedly vicious stare that Castiel gave him, and shut his mouth. “I’m not provoking him,” he told Dean, like Castiel wasn’t there to hear. “He might be grounded but I’m pretty sure he can throw a mean right hook.”

Dean tossed a glance over his small shoulders, a look which Castiel frowned at, because it came across as... _proud_. But the moment ended, Dean had turned away once more, and Castiel’s thoughts returned to the books laid out before him.

“Just saying,” Kevin muttered, at the edge of Castiel’s hearing. “From what I hear, with the pet thing? Tables have turned.”

Dean’s tail bristled, and he huffed and scooted away, going to pull a book of his own from the pile with his paws.

Castiel didn’t look up, but considered the words for a lot longer than it took for them to fade into silence.

He wasn’t Dean’s pet. He never had been. That wasn’t something that ever occurred to him - and besides that, he still remembered dubbing Sam, Dean, and Bobby ‘his favourite pets’. He had not been himself at the time, but that did not dampen the thought that these lines were blurred.

Who belonged to whom? Was Castiel nothing but a dog on a leash, to be pulled back when Dean needed him to work? Or was Dean so helpless that he needed the control of a being like Castiel, guided by the will of God?

Once. Once, maybe.

Not now.

Now, they stood as equals on the Earth, each with human bodies, muscle and sharp minds to fight with. Castiel banked millenia more knowledge, but lacked experience and worth. Dean... well, Dean was having temporary problems. They were still equals.

Even with a collar around Dean’s neck, or a chain around Castiel’s, they would tug and pull and control, but they belonged to each other. Their souls were entwined with cords and jagged metal; they were meant to be together, and Castiel was very sure of that. There could be no other reason for the pain, the bare happiness, and the unequivocal completion he felt when he was with Dean.

Time passed, but it was hard to gauge quite how long. Castiel measured by the four or five times he checked on Sam, on the pages he turned, the books he left scattered either side of his elbows, and the three separate occasions he looked up at the sound of tearing paper to find that Dean had accidentally torn pages with his claws.

The fourth time that happened, Dean huffed and gave up, swiping a paw angrily across the table and stalking off, then sitting down a few feet away.

“Are you not going to continue?” Castiel asked after him, thumbing his twitching, tired eye as he held back a yawn.

Dean flashed his tail to the side, glaring at the chinchilla in its cage. The grey creature stared back at him, blinking inexpressively. Castiel shook his head and turned back to his book, knowing already that Dean had lost interest. Even though he could read as a cat, perhaps his attention span wasn’t as keen to apply itself as it was when he was human.

That attention span, however, proved to be perfectly adequate to allow him to sit for another hour or more, staring at the chinchilla. He sat in silence, tail curled over his little paws, green eyes tracking every slight movement that rattled the cage.

Castiel became more and more weary, sinking further down onto the support of his hand. His vision was blurring, his stomach was empty, and he had run low on motivation. He had learned to skim words but no longer absorbed them, and he discovered to his utter dismay that he’d scoured a good five pages without taking in a single word.

He huffed heavily and leaned back in his chair, stretching his hands out flat on the table before him. “I’m done.”

Kevin looked up. “You found something?”

Castiel met his eye unsteadily, then glanced away. “I can no longer focus. Everything... hurts. My stomach aches, my head is too heavy. And my - my _rear_ hurts.”

“Get up and walk around.”

Castiel set a hand over his eyes, letting out a long breath that almost felt dusty from the books. “There’s nothing in here, not in these books. There’s plenty about souls, but―”

“But nothing about what to do when one starts bleeding. Yeah, I know.” Kevin closed the cover of the tome he’d been scanning, and swallowed, allowing one fast glance towards the sleeping Sam. “I think we’re boned for options. Dean...” Dean looked up, and Kevin shook his head, speaking in a hollow, undirected voice, “Dean’s not the kinda guy who’s happy to go by the instruction manual. If nobody’s dealt with this sort of problem before, then there’s no prior ideas, no theories or suggestions to go on.”

Castiel scrubbed a hand over his head, separating locks of uncomfortably greasy hair between his fingers. “So we’re stuck.”

Kevin didn’t look like he wanted to admit it - a feeling which Castiel shared. Dean stayed silent, half his attention still on the rodent.

But, finally, Kevin bowed his head. “Witches are out, demons are out, summoning Death... is a distant option. It’s the same info we started with, we’ve gotten nowhere.”

Castiel shook his head without a word; Death was too dangerous, a live wire, and he’d already done his part in saving Sam’s soul from damnation. Another pool of guilt bled into Castiel’s gut - he’d been the one to undo Death’s good work for Sam when he broke his Wall.

“I say we call it night,” Kevin sighed.

Castiel didn’t want to, but his body knew he had to. He wasn’t prepared to continue for any longer. “All right.”

“I’ll come and see how things are in the morning,” Kevin said, quietly pushing his chair back, casting a final glance at Sam, then at Dean.

Castiel wished him good night, and watched his figure ascend the spiral staircase at the side of the hall. When he heard the closing thump of Kevin’s bedroom door, Castiel let out a breath he was barely aware he’d taken. He looked over at Dean, offering an affirming, flat smile upon seeing Dean’s drooping eyelids.

“You can bother the chinchilla tomorrow,” Castiel supplied, standing up. “For now, you need to rest.”

Dean bounced off the table and landed on all four paws, then scampered over to Sam’s couch and hopped up beside Sam’s feet with their wrinkled socks. He turned in a circle and looked expectantly at Castiel.

“I ought to stay here,” Castiel voiced on Dean’s behalf, and Dean nodded. Castiel sighed, because with the small amount of space left on the couch once Sam’s body had filled it, he would have very little comfort in his resting position tonight.

Castiel checked on Sam one last time, patting, then shaking his shoulder, and Sam jolted awake.

“Apologies,” Castiel breathed, voice low so as not to startle Sam any further - his skin was pale, his eyes unfocused. “I’m going to rest now. I’ll keep checking on you through the night.”

Sam blinked, frowning, but didn’t reply.

“Sam, are you okay?”

Sam processed the question slowly, but eventually nodded. Castiel slumped in relief; he’d been worried. Dean padded onto Sam’s chest and headbutted his brother’s chin. Sam smiled lopsidedly, stroking Dean’s head.

Castiel wondered why he’d never seen anyone else pet Dean’s whole back. They seemed cautious in their touching, to some extent, and Castiel saw no reason for it.

When Dean huffed and slunk away, Sam fell back asleep. Castiel flipped the damp flannel on his forehead to give him the cooler side to ease his high temperature, then sat in the remaining space at the end of the couch. Sam’s feet pushed into his thigh, and the edge of the couch pressed on his other side, but he made do.

The lights were still on, and Castiel left them that way - he needed to check on Sam every hour, and he did not intend to fall asleep. Dean would wake him if he did, he was sure of it. Or, come to that, Dean would check on Sam himself.

Without preamble, Dean walked onto Castiel’s lap, paws digging into muscle, and sat down. He was warm and heavy.

Castiel simply rested, ignoring the ache in his empty stomach, because he didn’t want to disturb Dean. Dean eventually sank down, tucking his paws under his chest. He stared at the arm of the couch, on which Castiel had set the point of his elbow.

Tiredness lingered behind Castiel’s eyes like welcoming caresses, wholesome and weighty. He tried to fight it, and on more than one occasion he snapped to his senses, finding his surroundings blindingly bright and sharp, but the sensation only lasted moments before he succumbed to the syrupy haze of fatigue again.

Dean closed his eyes. Castiel watched him breathing, and found it was relaxing.

In, out. In, out. His fur changed its striped pattern as he inhaled, resettling as he exhaled. His outline of brown against Castiel’s black pants shifted its fine, fluffy shape.

Dean’s head drooped low as he fell more towards slumber, and Castiel felt himself smiling.

He was protective of Dean under any circumstances, but now, seeing him so vulnerable, placed in the very spot where Castiel had an easy job of watching over him, he became his guard. His guardian angel, sans the angelic part. There was still grace to be found, here.

Dean had _put_ himself on Castiel’s lap. He’d accepted and welcomed his protection, and that fact only led Castiel to wonder quite how vulnerable Dean really felt. He hadn’t shown it outwardly, but considering the situation they were all currently in, it was no great leap to say Dean felt burdened, shields cracked.

Castiel covered over the small body of his ward with a hand, a literal protection. Dean sniffed and moved his head upward, but beyond opening his eyes a crack, he did not startle too much. Castiel saw the white second eyelid sliding across the glossy orbs of his eyes, before the furry eyelid sank shut, sealing the bright gap.

He had such beautiful eyes.

Castiel began to stroke him; it only felt natural. Dean took in a deep, deep breath, filling up his tiny lungs, then he let it all out in one go. Castiel’s hands rounded Dean’s pokey back, feeling both hipbones under his palm and fingers. With a soft burst of a purr, Dean raised his rump an inch, as an invitation to continue.

Even when the purr lapsed into breathy silence, Castiel knew he was soothing Dean, as he was soothing himself.

Dean’s rump lowered after a few more whole-body caresses, and Castiel felt Dean’s muscles relaxing as sleep took him. Castiel felt wonderful knowing Dean was so accepting of his desire to touch him, protect him, watch over him as he slept.

Dean fell asleep, paws draping over Castiel’s thigh as they slid out from where they’d been tucked before. He was so incomprehensibly _peaceful_. Castiel had never seen him look so sweet.

He loved him, so very much.

✖✖✖

Castiel awoke disoriented, seeing sharp slits of light that he took some time to realise was the ceiling of the library. He was aware of the insides of his body; his stomach empty, his bladder full, his neck stiff and his arms out of place. He seemed to creak as he tipped his head forward, wincing at how cold his neck and shoulders were and how awfully the muscle ached.

He peered down, only to find that Dean was fast asleep against his chest, whiskered cheek pressed to his heart, Castiel’s arms scooped around him like he was holding a baby.

Castiel could not find coherent thoughts amongst the emotion he felt, seeing Dean like this, seeing _himself_ like this. He inexplicably felt like crying, despite the smile he wore and the absolute warmth in his body that sang like a chorus, beautiful throughout.

Dean had sensed his shift in consciousness, and cracked his eyes open. The pink of his tongue breached the small gap between his black lips, showing a flash of a white, pointed tooth.

He stared up at Castiel with a softness in his gaze, pupils dilated like half-waned black moons.

Castiel stared back, feeling satisfaction.

Ever so slowly, Dean adjusted his slumped body, stretching his neck upward, eyes still set on Castiel. Castiel thought he was about to vacate his lap, but realised the truth of the movement when Dean’s face lifted to within an inch of Castiel’s. He could feel the warmth of his breath, smell the tartness of unbrushed feline teeth, and was shocked by how intimate it was. Dean’s breath on his face. Breath from his lungs, air he’d _breathed_ , passing over Castiel’s parted lips.

Dean’s eyes fell closed, and he put his mouth on Castiel’s. Castiel almost gasped, feeling the prickle of short fur, and the thin, sticky line of Dean’s lip, the bare brush of a tooth―

Dean sucked in a sharp, fast breath, freezing up as he pulled away, retreating to Castiel’s lap. His eyes were wide, huge and black with unmistakable shock. Castiel blinked, unsure what had just happened.

Dean shut his eyes and launched himself off Castiel’s lap with four sets of claws. Castiel yelped in pain, clasping a hand on each of his injured thighs. He watched the brown tail vanish around the corner that led to the kitchen, and he gaped after Dean’s shadow in confusion.

He examined the redness that dotted through the fabric of his pants.

It took him a while, swaying thoughts pulling tight like wires, but all at once he understood: Dean had kissed him, having forgotten he was a cat.

_Kissed_.

Castiel put both hands over his head and hunched over his legs, upset that he hadn’t even realised what was happening while it happened. He hadn’t responded, he hadn’t reacted. And then Dean had panicked and run away.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Guilty.

With a long, heavy sigh, Castiel stood up, then grunted as his body alerted him to all its faults simultaneously.

With a slow look towards Sam, Castiel gulped. How long had he and Dean slept? How long had Sam gone without a check?

Crouching on the marble, Castiel touched his hand to Sam’s cheek. His skin had grown cold, and Castiel flooded with dread; he flung away the cold flannel and hovered his hand over Sam’s mouth, holding his breath so he would be able to sense Sam’s.

He felt a weak huff of warmth, and he smiled in pathetic relief. Hurriedly, he patted at Sam’s face.

“Sam,” he croaked, voice aged by inactivity. “Sam, wake up.”

Sam’s head flopped to the side, muscles so weak they did nothing to resist.

Castiel became terrified; he adjusted Sam’s head on the cushion under him, reaching a thumb to Sam’s left eye to pull open his eyelid. He had no need to check for pupil dilation, for Sam’s eyes had turned white, and his irises were gone. Cloudy, milky eyeballs were all that remained. It was an unnatural - _super_ natural - reaction to his soul’s disintegration. Blood dotted his eyelashes, crusted and dry.

Castiel felt as if a part of him expired, mourning already for what was about to be lost from Sam.

He was not going to wake. He was alive, but barely.

Closing his eyes, Castiel composed a prayer. Without words, without sound, it came as a sensation of pure empowerment. Determination.

He opened his eyes, and he looked at the corpse-like body under his hands. “I am going to save you, Sam,” he said.

✖✖✖

Dean fretted, and he panicked, but once his breathing returned to normal, he only felt hurt. In his whole existence - life, death, everything in between - he couldn’t pinpoint the single worst thing he’d ever done, but whatever it was, this had to be his punishment.

He’d taken what he wanted in the moment he was given, and it had left him empty and cold, souring with regret.

A funny voice in the back of his head told him, _this is why you can’t have nice things_. He knew it was true, despite the lighthearted jokiness of the words.

He didn’t deserve a perfect kiss with the man - angel - _person_ he loved. He could kiss, and do whatever the mood prompted him to do, with any number of people, but the one time he drove down the road he really wanted to drive down, he did nothing but drive over his own tail. So to speak.

He was one bitter, heartbroken cat. And he hated himself.

He gathered himself up, tail slung low, paws heavy. He wandered back towards the library, because he knew perfectly well that hiding forever would not help him. There would be less of an air of shame about him if he forged ahead and acted like it never happened, or if he acted jilted regarding Castiel’s lack of response. Everything was normal. Normal as could be, anyway.

He felt sick.

Approaching the corner that led to the library, he heard voices. _A_ voice, to be precise. Castiel’s voice. Assuming he was talking to Sam, Dean listened.

“ _...And I want to apologise. I know... I know it doesn’t mean much, not now. But I―_ ” Castiel took in a shaky breath, and Dean cringed, recalling the same unsettled breath Cas had taken when Dean tried to kiss him.

“ _―But it’s important. Important to me, that you know. How much this... hurts. It hurts, Sam. This guilt, this weight on me. I say I’m sorry to Dean, but I don’t think he understands it. People leave him._ I _leave him. And he always forgives you, because you come back. You left for college and then you came back. You left him in Purgatory and never looked for him, and he forgave you, because when you found each other again afterwards, you stayed._

“ _Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to him, and to you. Because if I come back, he might forgive me for leaving._ ”

A drenching of weakness fell through Dean’s body, and he crouched on the cold floor, straining his ears to hear more, but heard only silence. The silence hurt. Castiel had to take those words back, he needed to say that _wasn’t_ why he kept returning to Dean’s side. Dean didn’t want to believe it. This couldn’t all be about forgiveness, no - not everything had to hinge on what Dean had or hadn’t told Cas. Please.

Dean cursed himself for never explaining to Cas that he was already forgiven. Each time he saw those blue eyes in front of him, all grudges dissipated. Castiel was right. If he came back, all was forgiven.

But Dean, as he was demonstrating now, always said nothing, and acted as if nothing had changed between them, because it was easier. Easier than admitting that only _Cas_ got that treatment. Only Castiel, and only Sam. The two most cherished beings in Dean’s universe.

Dean didn’t even tell Sam how he felt about Cas. Maybe Sam knew. _Because it’s Cas_ , Sam had said, not much more than a week ago. _Go easy on him. He’s one of the good guys._

Dean knew that. Sure, he had come to doubt it on occasion, but it was undeniably true. Cas was pure of heart, and all that jazz. But Dean never told him he knew it. He could let his feelings out in salty, hot tears, or in brash and violent behaviour, but not in words. That barrier was his curse, and it was costing Castiel part of his beautiful heart.

Then Dean heard Castiel speak again, and he pricked his ears forward, attentive.

“ _Sam, your brother... has the single most spectacular soul in existence. Both of you have something glorious, it’s - it’s mind-boggling to even begin to explain, but without my power... I still feel it._ ”

Another long pause followed, and Dean disallowed all thought, only waiting.

“ _I’m sorry your soul is breaking. I’m sorry I broke your Wall, I’m sorry I hurt you like that. I thought I was doing the right thing, and perhaps that’s always been my problem. My moral compass is... bent. I believe the relevant phrase is ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’._ ” Castiel chuckled without humour. “ _In the case of me rescuing Dean from Hell, perhaps the phrase is literal. I meant well, even if I was... confused. I don’t - and never will - regret disobeying Heaven’s orders._ ”

He fell silent again, but then continued, “ _Heaven and Hell might have played a part in my decisions over the years, but the blame rests with me, and me alone. I look too far ahead, and I don’t see that what I’m doing in the present is a bad thing. I’m sorry for that; I’m sorry for never asking for help. I wish I had never done the things that hurt you. Perhaps the world would have ended if I hadn’t, perhaps it wouldn’t. Through it all, I’ve done more harm than good._ ”

A part of Dean wanted to go forward and tell Cas he didn’t need to say sorry. Dean had twice as many apologies to make.

But then something clicked: the words Castiel spoke were not for Dean. They were for Sam.

Cas was apologising to Sam because he wanted _Sam’s_ forgiveness, not Dean’s. Cas had wronged Sam in the past, and Dean had always taken it as personal offence, because―

Oh.

Oh, that made sense. When Cas did bad things on purpose or by mistake, Sam forgave him. Dean outwardly held a grudge because he was protective of Sam, while inside he was just glad to see his friend again. But Castiel did not forgive himself. By apologising to Sam, he was lifting his own burdens.

Dean now understood why Sam was staying quiet, just letting Cas get on with it.

Dean listened, and would continue to listen until Castiel no longer felt that weight, the same weight that Dean always carried. Dean wasn’t brave enough to talk about it, and he admired Cas for that bravery. Despite (or _because of_ ) the faults Castiel was bringing to Sam’s attention, it was still abundantly clear: between Dean and Castiel, Cas was the better one of the two of them.

“ _I’m sorry I opened the door to Purgatory. I’m sorry I worked with Crowley without telling you, against your will. I wish you could have known without me having to tell you, I wish you had let me talk. I’m sorry I was too scared to explain. I’m sorry I lied, I’m sorry I never told you it was all to protect you. I just didn’t want you to say no. I’m sorry I’m so clueless―_ ” Castiel’s voice broke, and with it broke a part of Dean. “ _I’m sorry I don’t understand your jokes, and I’m not as easy to talk to as you are for each other. I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you._ ”

God, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Dean wanted to call out, run to him, tell him he was the opposite of a burden, he was the _support_ , he was what - _who_ Dean needed beside him, to help him along. Screw the power, or the lack of power for that matter; Dean wanted Cas around because he smiled weirdly, because his jokes were oddly deadpan but still amusing, because he had nice eyes and a nice smell, because he made Dean feel better. Dean wanted him around because he loved him, and it was unconditional.

It was _unconditional_. No matter what.

Dean might get mad, but getting mad was what Dean did. He didn’t know how to deal with feeling love and abandonment at the same time. Everyone he loved left him, he didn’t know how to welcome them back, nor tell them he missed them.

All of a sudden, things became so very obvious: all Dean had to do was ask him to _stay_. That would say everything for him.

Easy.

All the while Dean had worked this out, Castiel had gone on talking, flooding more apologies out, his voice under control now, but still shaky. Dean caught words about the apocalypse, about his duties in Heaven, about trusting the wrong people time and time again. But then Dean heard something that he didn’t understand, and all other musings ended abruptly.

“ _―don’t know if you can hear me in there, Sam. I hope you can. I’m going to save you, I’ll find a way to do it. If I can’t save you, then..._ ” a slow, slow sigh, “ _then I will have nothing to live for. Dean will never look at me again, but it won’t even matter. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, far worse than I already am now. I blame myself for this. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, I should’ve let Dean lie with you instead, it might’ve held off the symptoms._ ”

Dean heard a heavy sniff, Castiel holding back tears again. “ _No amount of forgiveness will help. Not Dean’s, not yours, nor anyone’s. Even if you could speak right now, you couldn’t change my mind._ ”

Dean inched forward slowly, worry mounting inside him.

“ _I have learned from my mistakes. I ought not work behind your back, or do anything I know you’d disapprove of. But, Sam... ha!_ ” A mirthless laugh bounced off the wall Dean hid behind. “ _I’m not that person. I’ll always be disobedient. I’m not Dean’s pet, I will not always follow his rules. But I am telling you this time, I’m letting you know beforehand. I’m about to do something stupid. But it’s going to save your life, and that’s all I care about._ ”

Dean shook his head, too tense to let that one slide. He darted forward, stepping into the golden light of the library. He peered across the hall, seeing Sam lying right where Dean had left him, flopped over the couch. Castiel sat a foot away, hunched over in a wooden chair with both his hands clasped around one of Sam’s.

Dean padded forward, watching Castiel’s head drop to his chest, like the last of his resolve had gone. He hadn’t seen Dean approaching, and Dean kept it that way; he stopped a few feet away, standing where Castiel would not see him.

Sam looked dead.

Dean felt a rush of regret and anger and deep, deep pain, but did not bring anything into coherent thought. Castiel had already covered it all: Dean should have slept beside Sam to hold back the onset of a coma. It was too late, and Castiel was already standing up, ready to move on.

Dean stayed hidden, watching Castiel stand up straight. What Dean saw of his face was lined and drawn taut with stress, eyes dulled. His lips pressed flat, and he bowed his head. “Thank you, Sam,” he said. “Thank you for being the person that you are. You are... I suppose, a hero to me. I shall always see you that way.”

Dean hated how much it sounded like a eulogy read over an open casket. If Cas were to change it to past tense, it would be exactly that.

Castiel took begrudging steps away, heaving a sigh. Dean watched his shoes disappear around the corner, and was left alone with his brother.

That could have been the last time he ever saw Cas, and Dean hadn’t said a thing. There was no point telling him to stay now, not when he was so intent on leaving.

This time, Dean almost felt glad to let him go. Sam needed saving, and no matter what foolish thing Cas was about to do, Dean would thank him after, be he dead or alive.

Jumping onto Sam’s chest and crawling under one of his arms, Dean lay down and listened for his brother’s dying heartbeat.

Even though Cas had already made his mind up, Dean still had time to pull him back, to save him from his own mistakes. But _still_ he stayed. The decision was out of his hands but it still felt like his choice. Between Sam and Cas, he was choosing Sam.

That knowledge felt heavier than every memory of Hell he’d ever amassed.

✖✖✖

The thick doors to the dungeon slid open on terribly grating runners, thumping into the sides of the far walls. Castiel strode inside with purpose and ferocious determination.

He stopped as he saw what lay before him. This place was dark, like a dripping shadow, symbols and sigils carved into every available surface. In the very centre of the room was a single chair, and in that chair was Crowley, hands bound, neck clasped in an engraved metal brace.

“Well, well,” Crowley said, his accent crisper than the stale air should have allowed it to be. He gave Castiel a once-over with his shiny, hungry eyes, then smirked pointedly. “You look a right mess, Castiel.”

Castiel stared defiantly back with his chin raised and his eyes narrowed. He would wait until Crowley burned out his insults, then he would disarm him by voicing his intentions, knowing Crowley would be surprised. Being the one unbound, Castiel had the upper hand, and he had no inclination to let that hand turn.

Crowley hummed, tilting his head into the short inch or so had had room to move. “Do I smell humanity, angel? Dirt and sweat, oh-ho, yes.” His eyes gleamed with an unplaceable glee. “You haven’t washed for a few days, have you? Tut-tut. Missing that holy soap of yours, I’d say. You reek something terrible.”

“What you’re smelling is a soul, Crowley,” Castiel said, raising his eyebrows. “You have one of your own, so I’ve heard.”

“I have nothing of the sort,” Crowley huffed. “Demons have a nice big gap where the soul should be, and we like to fill that gap with pain and suffering. Soullessness is a spectator sport, you know. We have _far_ more fun than humans have.”

“A soul means suffering,” Castiel said, recalling something Charlie had said to him at some point. “People suffer because they care.”

Crowley sighed, like he was bored. “We covered this one in demon kindergarten, Castiel. Skip to the good part: why pay me the courtesy of a visit, hm? If you’re going to start sticking me, I request the giant rusty needle, it burns more than the salt.” He smiled crookedly, pleased with himself.

“I came here because you have an ability,” Castiel said, beginning to pace, hands held behind his back. He stepped counter-clockwise, mapping the circle of the devil’s trap under his shoes. “You have a power I no longer have.”

“Feeling frail without your wings, are you?”

“No,” Castiel lied, without pressure on the word. He was behind Crowley now, still pacing. Crowley couldn’t see his sunken expression. He kept walking until he was at Crowley’s three o’clock. “I need you,” he said, catching Crowley’s searching eye from the side, “to make a deal with me.”

Crowley squinted.

Halting his steps in front of Crowley, Castiel took in a powerful breath. “After the ritual he did on you, Sam became sick. His soul is crumbling away, eating itself. I want you to fix him.”

“Ah,” Crowley said, chin up, eyes down, mouth open as he thought. “He’s becoming a demon.”

Castiel did not let his horror show on his face.

He’d never even considered such a thing. He’d known every fact that pieced together to create that whole truth, but he had not summarised it that way. Now he knew.

Crowley looked up, and Castiel schooled his expression so he looked expectant.

“What makes you think I would do anything to not only _help_ your dearly beloved Moose, but to take away from _myself_ what could be the single most interesting project the future of my Kingdom might present - ooh... _ever_?”

“You are trapped here, Crowley,” Castiel said, plainly, looming over Crowley’s chair, setting both hands on the armrests. Crowley blinked back. “Nobody is coming for you. Nobody can find you here, and you will not be released. You will reside in this room until both Winchesters move on or perish, and then some. You won’t die, but you will remain here. Forever. If Sam were to become a full demon, you would never see him. He would not be your ‘project’. Dean or I would kill him immediately.”

He felt a disconnect to those words. It would never come to that, and he knew it.

Or, he hoped it.

Crowley seemed to consider that statement. “Hm.”

“If Sam were human,” Castiel went on, starting another circle around the demon, “then you, I’m sure, would have far more time to... play with him. Who knows, he might let you outside to run around on the grass for a while.”

He felt cruel, feeding Crowley the proposal this way. But this was no time for force; this decision was up to Crowley, and unless he saw what was in it for himself, he would not agree. More than anything, Castiel needed him to agree.

✖✖✖

Crowley was going to agree, and he already knew it well. He liked seeing Castiel say these things about his friends, because he liked seeing him upset and wounded, like he was now. Oh, he was adorable. Crowley craved seeing him bent over and broken, but the desperation he saw in Castiel’s eyes at present was not so far from exactly that.

Human. Hah. Pathetic, but still delicious in their own little way.

If only Crowley wasn’t already one of them.

He could feel it, inside him. The _soul_. It glowed, and it made him ache. It made him sad, and it made him want to escape from here, surrounded by the regrets his dark life provided him.

He could never be human. But he could be a demon with a soul, and that had to be a fate worse than humanity. He was an outcast from his own Kingdom, and he hated how aware he was of that. Like Castiel had said: nobody was coming to rescue him. His tiny battle with Abaddon in the seaside church had proved as much. He had no options but to go into hiding, should he ever escape here. Ironically, this was the safest place he could be.

At the very moment Castiel had told him about Sam’s predicament, it had all come together. It made sense! The hours of ritual in the church, the casual application of soulfulness - it wasn’t random, it wasn’t some fancy hat trick. It served a purpose, and that purpose was to _transfer_ a soul.

The ritual had been left incomplete, and Crowley was grateful to the floppy-haired heffalump for that, at least. Crowley wanted to stay a demon, and Sam - bless his heart - had wanted to stick around to snuggle with his brother.

So Crowley had maybe ninety percent of Sam’s soul inside him. It was mangled, what with a partial Wall sitting inside it, and through that came the odd oozing of Fun Times With Michael and Lucifer. It tasted funny, like someone had chewed it and spat it back out.

Sam, on the other hand, had a demon hole, and it was gradually filling up with Crowley’s black smoke.

Crowley saw no downsides to Castiel’s proposal to save Sam with a deal. If he said yes, the chances were he’d get his full demonic power back.

What remained of his power had been leeching away in slow increments over the past few days. Within that time, he’d occasionally gotten a peculiar feeling, shaped similarly in his mind to a cat he once had, a moggie he liked to call Azzi. The sensation was odd, and it made him feel more demonic for a while, until the cat shape disappeared and he started feeling soulful again. He felt it right now, actually. Feline fur under his hands, the rumble of a purr. He would not say a word about it out loud, because he already knew he was going mad, and didn’t want to confirm as much.

Castiel was still talking. The helpless sod probably thought Crowley needed convincing, because he was still prattling on about why Sam would be worth saving in the eyes of a demon. Crowley found the point about Sam’s year of soullessness quite endearing. He’d call that one Sam’s practice run.

“For Judas’ sake, angel, just let me out of these manacles and maybe - _maybe_ I’ll see what I can do.”

Castiel stopped pacing, eyes sharp and narrowed in on Crowley’s face. “You’ll do it?”

“I said maybe, didn’t I?”

A bright flash of hope crossed Castiel’s face, until he forced it away. He did not have as good of a poker face as he thought he did. “I’m not letting you out, I’m not that stupid.”

“Actually you are,” Crowley quipped, rattling the chains that surrounded him. “You really think I can do any demon magic when I’m trussed up like a sexy turkey?”

Castiel’s lip twitched, realising he’d been beaten on that point.

He thought for a while, and Crowley let his cogs whirr. Then, Castiel sighed. “I’ll let you out of your bindings so long as you don’t try to escape. If you do―”

“You’ll smite me? Oh, wait - that’s right, you can’t.”

“Maybe not,” Castiel said. Crowley watched a silver spike fall from the sleeve of Castiel’s hoodie, and his hand turned to grip its handle. “But I’m still good with a blade.”

Crowley gulped. That angel blade would hurt him significantly, and without his full power he would find it hard to heal.

On that thought, he froze. “Ah,” he breathed.

“What?”

Crowley jerked his face towards Castiel, a slight pang of nausea curdling in his stomach. He did not want to admit this, but he supposed that admitting it might allow him a small amount of control over Castiel, despite the shame it brought him. “I may...” he turned his head, “not have enough power to make a deal.”

Castiel balked. “How so?”

Crowley sighed, shoulders sinking. “Sam has the good part.”

Castiel swallowed, fiddling his thumb on the handle of his angel blade. He looked over Crowley’s face carefully, and Crowley did not hide how truthful his admission had been. He was weak, and he hated it. But tied here, he could not tell quite how deeply that weakness had spread.

“Let me out, and I’ll try my best,” Crowley smiled. “Gold star if I fail, because I tried, right?”

“No,” Castiel said. “You succeed or I kill you.”

Crowley gave a stage gasp, acting aghast. “How dare you! I’m the best asset you twisted underwear models have, and you want to _kill_ me?”

Okay, maybe that aghast-ness wasn’t an act. A cover act, maybe. But it had honesty underneath, and wasn’t that just darling?

“I don’t want to kill you,” Castiel amended, brute force in his words and his eyes. “But if you leave me no choice, I will not hesitate.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, then lifted his wrists, presenting them to Castiel.

Warily, Castiel came forward, getting as close as he had been before, almost leaning into Crowley’s face again. He pulled a key from his pocket and began to unlock Crowley’s hands.

“Why isn’t Squirrel the one to let me out, huh?” Crowley asked. “He’s usually your average gunpowder-happy American, and he’s not even here to see the fireworks.”

Castiel squinted, trying to make sense of that, perhaps. “He is standing guard.”

“Is he now,” Crowley said, watching Castiel’s face carefully as he stuck a second key into the brace around Crowley’s neck. Castiel was lying, and Crowley could not put his finger on why.

The neck brace clacked open, and Crowley gave a grunt of relief. “Beautiful.” He stood slowly, stretching out his legs and arms, clicking his neck as he tilted it from side to side.

“Now,” Castiel said, pointing the blade towards the open doors, “Out.”

Crowley walked, cataloguing the surrounding space. He’d never seen this area, the storage shelves in the gloomy dark beyond the thick doors. Oh, there were so many things here he could use as a weapon - if only the point of the angel blade wasn’t stuck mid-back, edging him forward. One wrong move and it would hit kidneys, maybe take out a chunk of his spine, and Crowley was in no mood to explain to Castiel that he might actually die from that kind of injury. He wouldn’t be able to heal himself - he needed to save what little of his his power he had to heal Sam, or he wouldn’t get it back, and it would be wasted.

Stepping out into bright light, Crowley blinked. They were through the doorway and into a cold, wide, greyish-blue hall, lit by electric lights from above. He looked both ways, seeing no windows, no Dean standing guard, and no defining characteristics in the hall that would let him know where he was. To his right was a doorway, which led to another corridor, but he was prevented from taking another step by the blade to his throat.

He gulped, feeling the sharpness of it, actually experiencing tremors of fear.

“Make the deal,” Castiel demanded. “Sam’s soul is to be healed, and he stops becoming a demon.”

“And I take your soul in payment,” Crowley said, a wicked surge of glee rising in him as he saw the brief shadow cross Castiel’s tired face. “And guess what?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, breath rushing warm on Crowley’s cheek as he huffed. “What.”

“Deals are sealed with a kiss. You lucky thing.”

Castiel’s expression didn’t change, besides his flared nostrils. He’d already resigned himself to that fate, it would seem.

Crowley sighed, rolling his eyes again. He was stalling, but only because it was so nice to stand upright after however many days in the cramped little dungeon. “Fine. Let’s see. Ten years to collect seems like too much, don’t you think? Everything’s instant these days. Snapchat, Twitter, online grocery shopping. Ten years in today’s economy is an _investment_ , and that’s not what you’re after, is it? You want a quick fix.”

Castiel lowered the blade and stepped back, making sure he was between Crowley and the doorway.

“Do it now, Crowley.”

“You’ll die. Or - close enough. You’ll be walking around soulless.”

“You intend to take my soul instantly.” Castiel raised his chin. “If you won’t offer another option... then... fine.”

The thing was, as Crowley mustered up the scraps of power left in him, he watched shimmering tears forming in the corners of Castiel’s eyes.

And that little bit of soul in Crowley wasn’t just any soul. It was Sam’s soul. Sam Winchester, the most loyal of all puppydogs. Crowley almost felt his lip tremble.

✖✖✖

While he waited for Crowley to finish drawing up his mental contract, Castiel listened for the voices in a distant part of the building: Kevin muttering, probably to Dean. Castiel likely didn’t have much time before someone came and found him to stop him.

He wondered what he would be like without a soul. Perhaps he would act like Sam had, when Castiel mistakenly left his soul in the Cage: lacking instinct or empathy.

He would no longer be Castiel.

Without grace or a soul, he may as well not be on the planet.

Not for the first time, he considered ending his own life. Maybe when this was over, he would. He’d caused enough problems, and he was done. No more.

Crowley puffed out a breath, and nodded. “All right, gotcha. Pucker up, buttercup.”

“Read me the terms,” Castiel said, flashing his weapon.

“Highlights? Everything you said. Sam gets his lovehole filled, you lose your soul to me. Dean, however, is notably absent.”

Castiel’s eyes shifted away, holding back tears, but he did not comment on Crowley’s observation. He would miss Dean so very much. He doubted that he would still love him once this deal was sealed; a lack of a soul was a lack of all feeling, no matter how driving or important those feelings were presently.

It was now or never, though. Sam could lose whatever was left of himself at any moment, and this was the only option left.

“Okay,” Castiel breathed, nodding, trying to pretend he wasn’t cracking apart inside. “Okay, do it. Do it, I’m ready.”

Crowley looked positively cheerful as he grabbed the front of Castiel’s t-shirt. Castiel didn’t even raise his weapon against him, only let the shorter man pull him closer, until Crowley’s head bumped the wall behind him and he flattened himself to it.

“Always wanted to do this,” Crowley smiled, grasping Castiel’s hair with his other hand and forcing their mouths together.

Castiel pressed into Crowley’s lips, scrunched his eyes up tight, and tried his very best to ignore the sensation of Crowley’s mouth moving against his own. Perhaps if he pretended he was numb, he would be. Only, numbness wa going to become his default in mere moments.

This was a sickening, sickening thing he was doing. But so necessary.

It went on for too long, however, and Castiel began to panic. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, on his lower back, in the palms of his hands as they pressed to the wall. He wanted this to end, but wasn’t sure if he could pull away without damaging the deal. Crowley barely had any power, and Castiel wasn’t unaware, even if Crowley had initially hidden that fact.

Crowley made crooning noises as he kissed, and Castiel breathed hard, squirming in distaste, pulling all but his mouth as far from Crowley as he could possibly be.

At last, air burst into Castiel’s mouth and he threw some distance between himself and Crowley . He stumbled three steps back, scrubbing his wrist over his mouth, wishing away the sensation and taste that came with a kiss from someone he felt no affection for at all.

“Ahh, isn’t life grand,” Crowley said, smiling widely, raising his hands to his sides. “Feeling better, pet?”

Castiel sneered, then looked down at his empty hand, noticing he’d dropped the angel blade in his relief at being free. But he also noticed that he was _feeling_. He looked up sharply, watching Crowley flex his own fingers. “What did you do?”

“I fixed Sam, like you wanted,” Crowley shrugged. He was still smiling, and it was unnerving. “And aah! Power!” He drew in a huge, huge breath, eyes closing. “Yes!”

“To me! What did you do to _me_?”

Crowley opened one eye and considered Castiel’s ragged expression. “Oh, that. I figured, one year was a decent margin.”

“One year,” Castiel repeated, unsure of Crowley’s meaning.

Crowley made a sharp movement, heading for the door. Castiel ducked to his knees and swiped the blade up, eyes on the newly re-demonised Crowley. “Back in your jailcell. Now!”

“Aw, but I was planning on having so much fun!”

Terror and realisation at the mistake he’d made hit Castiel like a punch to the gut. Crowley was raising an arm, ready to strike Castiel with demon magic.

Castiel closed his eyes, flinching―

But nothing came.

He cracked open an eye, and saw Crowley looking about as confused as Castiel felt.

“What?” the demon breathed. “No power?”

Castiel waited for him to explain, since he certainly had no understanding himself.

Crowley began to frown. “...Human.”

Castiel was triumphant without knowing how.

✖✖✖

Kevin hurtled into the hall of the library, skidding on the balls of his feet as he made it to the couch where he’d left the brothers. “Dean!” he panted. “I just saw― I mean, I just _saw_ ―”

How could he ever explain it to Dean? He was going to be heartbroken.

“Crowley. Crowley and Cas,” Kevin managed, edgy on his toes. Dean’s cat eyes peered back without much emotion behind them, like he’d stopped caring. Sam was literally dying, so Kevin got that.

“Kissing,” Kevin finished.

Dean immediately looked like he was about to puke.

Sam stirred. “Dh?”

Dean leapt up to his feet, extending claws visible from where Kevin stood; he winced in sympathy as Sam yelped and curled forward, toppling Dean off his chest to between his legs.

Kevin had had his suspicions, but now he got what Cas had been doing with Crowley. Wow, that was a crazy move. But Sam was sitting up by himself, spluttering, totally alive and fine. And it was thanks to Cas.

Dean pattered over his brother’s body, sniffing his face, licking him once, before he sat back, seemingly satisfied. Then he turned his eyes to Kevin, jumped onto the marble and trotted forward with murder in his eyes. “ _Mow._ ”

Kevin turned and led him to the dungeon.

✖✖✖

Sam bounded ahead on new legs, overtaking Kevin and Dean, already knowing where to go. Tunnels and corridors passed like nothing, and in barely any time at all he burst into the hallway before the dungeon, almost running into Cas.

He grasped Castiel by the shoulders, looking at his exhausted face, beaming at him. “You did it.”

Castiel smiled at Sam. “You’re alive.”

Sam laughed, breathy, and pulled Castiel into a fierce hug. Castiel squeaked, and something clicked in his back, but after a moment, he relaxed, and wound his arms over Sam’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Sam said, with utmost feeling.

Castiel rested a hand on the back of Sam’s shoulder. “It’s finished.”

Sam pulled back. “What, what’s finished?” He stared between each of Castiel’s eyes, hoping to pull forth an elaboration.

Castiel pressed a flat smile on his mouth and blinked away his tears. “The last trials. My trial, your trial, our parallel quests to close the gates to the other dimensions...”

“Yeah?”

Castiel took a breath, “I was the last piece. It ended with the meeting of Heaven and Hell’s pawns.” He smiled. “As did the Wayward Soldier, so too the King has fallen.”

Sam was astounded. “What?”

Castiel shrugged. “I made a deal with Crowley to heal you,” he said.

Well, yeah. Sam had already known that from the moment he woke up.

“And,” Castiel continued, “in sealing that deal, I reversed what you’d been trying to do during your final trial, in your attempt to ‘cure’ Crowley. I put your soul _back_. I was meant to have my soul taken in exchange, and Crowley was going to be a demon again, but neither of those things happened. I still have my soul.”

“I don’t see―”

“I didn’t understand either. I never do. I die, I come back. No explanation, no reason for it. I thought it was to punish me, but maybe it’s not. I keep being granted _life_ , and maybe that means I’m supposed to _do_ something with it. Save you. Save Dean. Close both the gates of Heaven and Hell at once, because _I saved you_ , Sam! The boy with the demon blood! A _friend_. Family. I did something right for once! If there ever was a _sign_ , this is it!”

Sam was enlivened by how bright Castiel’s eyes had become, but he still didn’t get how this happened. “Wait, you’re saying― Both gates are closed? It’s over?!”

Castiel hummed a laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling, joyous and sarcastic at once. “It’s not over. It’s never over. Angels and demons are roaming the Earth, same as before. We’ve got work to do, Sam.”

Well, that was a ripped-off line if Sam ever heard one. He grinned.

Breathing out, Sam lurched forward and tugged Castiel into yet another hug.

“Oh,” Castiel added, “And Crowley is human. He will need feeding. And a bathroom. And possibly a handkerchief, because he’s crying.”

Six impossible things before breakfast, right? Sam just accepted it and hugged a bit tighter.

“ _Mow!_ ”

Sam laughed softly, eyes turning to Dean beside their feet, who was sitting upright on his back legs like a meerkat, straining to be picked up.

“Oh, you want in?” Sam asked, already breaking away from Castiel to stoop and pick up his brother. Dean was lifted willingly, heavy limbs dangling as Sam scooped him up beside his chest. He chuckled, seeing Dean straight away start scrambling to be held by Castiel instead.

Castiel cooed, taking Dean from Sam like he would a baby. Sam smiled, his heart warming to see Castiel cradle Dean, an arm under his curved back, other hand resting on his fluffy tummy, tickling him.

Dean looked at Sam, wearing an unmistakable smile. Sam stepped back into Castiel’s personal space, and draped his arms around them both. “Group hug,” he muttered. Dean started purring.

“Um,” Kevin said.

Sam grinned and swept an arm wide, making space for Kevin to join.

Ah, Sam thought, as they all bunched around the rumbling, rattling sound of a happy Dean, all this hug could use right now was―

✖✖✖

“You had a group hug without me?!” Charlie yelled, dumping the groceries on the table. “Seriously?! Come _on_. Sam was on his deathbed, Cas made a demon deal, the King of Hell loses his power to a gay kiss, and now Sam’s awake and alive?! I miss all the good plot points!”

Sam laughed and kicked his legs out over the couch, not caring much that Dean hissed at him and crawled onto Castiel’s lap instead. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. We could recreate it now, if you―”

“Don’t bother,” Charlie drawled, rolling her eyes. “Magic’s gone. Some other time, maybe when Cas has had a shower and Dean’s cleaned himself with something other than his tongue.”

Sam pursed his lips at his brother and Castiel. They did seem to make a decent pair; Dean stopped licking his back and glared at Charlie, tongue still sticking out. Castiel lifted a finger and poked the pink shape, then laughed when Dean went cross-eyed and licked Castiel’s fingertip.

Sam hadn’t been able to separate them for going on an hour now. Dean was plenty happy to have Sam back, and the best way of showing that was apparently to cling to the person who saved him. Namely, Cas. He’d been purring intermittently in that time too, which was quite a refreshing change from all the quiet sulking. It was like hearing him humming, which Sam knew he only did when he was nervous, or really, really happy.

And that wasn’t even to mention the fact that Dean let Cas rub his tummy. It was borderline inappropriate, and Sam had cast his eyes away all three times he’d caught sight of them doing that together.

Dean got this look in his eyes, like Cas was his world. No matter how nice it was to see that on Dean’s face, feline or no, it wasn’t something Sam was meant to see. It was a different look than the ones Dean gave Sam. Similar, but not the same.

Sitting down beside Kevin, Charlie poked a thin carrot through the bars of the still-unnamed chinchilla’s cage. Sam watched them, then shook his head and smiled.

He had a funny little family. But he loved the heck out of each and every one of them, and it didn’t take almost losing himself to demon smoke to be assured of that.

✖✖✖

The day went on, with laughter highlighting every minute. They talked, and they joked, and they ate and drank. It was celebration.

Calls came in, firstly from Garth, then other hunters. Angels all over the world had simultaneously gotten their powers back - not their ability to teleport, but their ability to smite. (That was probably going to be a problem by early next week, if not earlier.)

There was no explanation. Sometimes that was the way it was, in the Winchester family’s experience. Things just happened because someone did something, but nobody really knew what they’d done exactly.

It was supernaturally unexplained, one might say. _Magic_.

Around midday, Sam walked into the kitchen to check on lunch, and found Castiel making hamburgers with Dean winding around his ankles. Castiel was telling Dean about how much he enjoyed watching Dean eat. Neither of them saw Sam, and it looked kind of private, so he let them be.

When everyone’s stomachs were sated, the laughter and casual banter simmered low for a while. Sam saw Castiel leave the table, and he didn’t come back for a few minutes. Sam figured he was taking a bathroom break, but Cas came back soon after with a plastic bag in his hand.

“Oh!” Charlie said, sitting bolt upright, like she recognised the bag.

“I have some things for you, Dean,” Castiel said, quietly. He rustled the bag. Dean padded closer, curious.

Castiel reached into the bag, and pulled out a small, blue mouse. Dean sniffed it, and his tail shot upright, unintentionally flashing his butt at Sam. Sam grumbled, but it became a laugh when Dean flopped over onto his side and began nuzzling the toy.

“Catnip,” Charlie grinned, aiming her phone camera at Dean. “It’s like kitty dope.”

Castiel looked like his heart had turned to molten liquid, watching Dean as Dean gave chirpy, cooing mewls, maybe sounds that could translate as moans of pleasure.

The subsequent flopping and rolling around the table that Dean did was officially the cutest thing that Sam would outright tell him was cute without the threat of claw marks. Dean was too blissed out to care.

(Charlie took photos. Dean would care later.)

But apparently that mouse wasn’t the only thing in the bag. Castiel sat down, hands fiddling with something else. Every few seconds his eyes darted to Dean, who was still very distracted.

“What’ve you got there, Cas?” Sam asked, leaning over the table, spinning his beer bottle under his fingers. Whatever was in Castiel’s hands, it jingled. “Cat toy?”

“Ah... no,” Castiel said, gulping. He glanced at Dean again, then back to what was in his hands. “I’m not sure...”

Charlie rested a hand on Castiel’s arm, wrinkling his loose overshirt as she squeezed him. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. The money I spent buying that wasn’t wasted, you know? Learning process.”

Castiel shot her a grateful smile, but still did not seem convinced.

Sam leaned closer, watching Dean flop over again, chattering to his mouse. Then, to Castiel, Sam said, “What did you get him?”

Hiding the thing in his hand, Castiel passed a closed fist over the table, then opened it in front of Sam. Sam’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw a black collar with silver studs as decoration, like biker gangs had on their jackets. 

That was all cool - Dean was a cat, so offering him a collar wasn’t weird. It was the tag with his name on it that was weird. Sam looked up and met Castiel’s eye.

Castiel looked back and retracted his arm. He knew exactly what Sam was thinking, because he was having the same doubts.

A pink loveheart wasn’t subtle.

Sam tried to smile, keeping it lighthearted. “It was the last one they had left, right? That’s why?”

Castiel opened his mouth then shut it. His eyes flicked to Charlie, then Kevin, then back to Sam. “Yes,” he said. “Yeah, it was the last one left in the shop. They didn’t have any other types.”

Sam gave a dull smile. Cas was a terrible liar.

At least Cas knew what he felt for Dean. All this time, Sam thought he was oblivious. And at least he knew what the gesture would _mean_ to Dean. Cas was better at humanity’s take on feelings than Sam had given him credit for.

Castiel took a huge breath, slow and quiet. Then he let it go, and reached a hand to rest it on Dean’s trembling side. “Dean?”

Dean sighed. “ _Muaaaa!!hhhhhhhh..._ ” Wow, he was totally high right now.

Castiel carefully attempted to remove the cat toy from Dean’s paws. Dean grabbed at it, but his reaction was too slow, and he missed. He flopped his paw over his face and murmured.

“Dean, if you sit up, I’m going to give you something else. Then you can have your mouse back,” Castiel said, as reasonably as he might speak to a child.

Dean flopped over, all loose-limbs and dozy eyes. He managed to flop a bit more so he was facing Cas, but then closed his eyes and started purring rather than sitting up.

Castiel stroked him softly. “Dean...? I... I want to give you this. Please sit up.”

Dean made the effort to do as he was told, but very slowly. When he was sitting, Castiel rested his forehead on Dean’s and closed his eyes - Dean purred and rubbed his head on Castiel’s, nuzzling and nosing at him.

Sam smirked, catching Kevin’s eye. Kevin bugged his eyes and downed a long sip of beer. Charlie took a photo.

When Castiel pulled away, Dean slumped a bit. Castiel ruffled his side with a hand, then raised his closed fist to the table, leaving it there for Dean to look at. When Dean prodded Cas’ curled fingers with his paw, Castiel opened up his hand and let Dean see what he held.

“It’s for you,” Castiel said, almost unnecessarily. “I don’t know if you’d want to wear it, but it’s - I mean... It’s from me. Charlie bought it, but you should know, it’s specifically from myself.”

Dean looked up, nose almost touching Castiel’s. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, and despite Dean’s cat body, it really wasn’t so different to how they always looked at each other.

Dean ducked his head again, and prodded the heart-shaped tag in questioning.

Castiel licked his lips, eyes darting to Sam’s. His fingers twitched around the collar. “It was the last one they had in the shop. Sorry about the shape. And the colour.”

Sam felt a sinking disappointment. They’d been so close.

Charlie apparently felt about the same, because she cracked open another beer, and handed a second one to Kevin.

Dean plucked at the collar with his claws, and Castiel took that to mean acceptance. Smiling, he lifted the leather strap up, and Dean elongated his neck to give Castiel some room to attach the gift.

Sam didn’t miss the moment Dean’s eyes fell shut, and he donned an expression of total euphoria, deeper and more true than the one he’d worn while messing with his catnip toy. He _liked_ this odd ceremony, and Sam was pleased.

“There,” Castiel whispered, as the catch did up, and he fingered the pink tag so it sat under Dean’s throat. “It fits you perfectly.” He smiled wistfully, dewy-eyed. “You look very handsome, Dean.”

“ _Maww._ ”

Sam noted the pleased curl at the end of his tail.

Without warning, Dean leaned up and headbutted Castiel again, pushing against him, falling onto him. Castiel, laughing, wrapped his arms around Dean, burying his nose against his back. They held together for a while. Castiel took a deep breath from Dean’s fur, then breathed out again. Dean pushed up on his back legs to tuck his chin over Castiel’s shoulder, eyes closed. He was hugging him like he would hug him as a human.

Charlie didn’t even take a photo this time, she just sat there with the rest of them and soaked up the general soppiness. Sam had never seen Dean so affectionate, and, certainly, he liked seeing it. Dean was comfortable like this, maybe more so than he’d ever been as a human.

Huh. Sam entertained a curious thought: in absence of comprehensible words, Dean had taken to using body language to speak. He’d never been good at saying what he felt. And right now, he was showing it instead.

Then Dean started purring again, and - okay - maybe that was vocal enough.


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel felt properly refreshed after his shower. His mind was hazy from beer, because he’d definitely drunk beyond what Sam informed him was the legal limit. Human laws applying to Castiel seemed unreasonable, especially given he’d probably saved the world a lot of future problems today. But then he had started to feel sick, and became rather grumpy, so understood now why that particular law was in effect.

He’d gone to the bathroom and thrown up, which was quite possibly the most vile thing he’d ever done as a human, including kissing Crowley - but afterwards, he felt better. Sam had patted him on the back, shoved him towards the shower, and told him to wash up and get some rest.

So, that was what he was doing.

He found Dean waiting outside his bedroom door when he returned, and Castiel had to remind himself that the room was actually Dean’s. He smiled and let the cat inside, and followed his tiny footsteps, his own bare feet going from marble onto carpet.

“Did you have fun today, Dean?” Castiel asked, closing the door once inside. He switched the main light on, and shuffled over to the bedside light to turn that on. While Castiel adjusted his towel around his waist, Dean hopped up onto the badly-made bed, mewling.

“I did too,” Castiel said. He smiled fondly at Dean, wishing he could know for sure what Dean had said. “I particularly enjoyed when you were intoxicated.”

Dean sat down on the bedspread, huffing indignantly. Never mind the catnip. Suffice to say, as a cat, his alcohol tolerance level was far lower than Castiel’s as a human. Watching a cat tottering around the table before falling to the floor had proved hilarious, even to Kevin, who had also fallen off his chair from laughter.

Castiel wandered back to the light switch, flicking it off, so only the bedside lamp coated the room in a honey-coloured light. He put a hand on Dean’s wooden dresser, and met Dean’s eye. “Do you mind if I borrow...?”

Dean shrugged.

Castiel opened a drawer and picked out a pair of rolled-up boxers, made of stretchy black cotton. He unrolled them and held them up, then turned to Dean. “Are these okay?”

Dean’s facial expression was nearly indecipherable under his striped fur, but he shrugged again.

Castiel took that as permission, and he untied his towel to pull on the clean underwear. Once the thick band snapped against his middle, he picked up the towel and threw it onto the chair at the side of the room, then turned towards the bed. Dean’s eyes were wide, pupils very obviously dilated, ears flattened back to his head. He looked to Castiel - at a loss for another word - spooked.

“Dean?”

Dean’s mouth opened a short way, then he closed it and swallowed. His ears flicked back up, and he turned his head away. With a clean shirt in hand from the drawer, Castiel crept forward. He pulled on the shirt, sighing at the relaxation he felt. A bedtime routine could definitely become his favourite part of the day.

“Dean, would you like to sleep with me tonight?”

Dean’s ears flattened back again, not meeting Castiel’s gaze.

Castiel smiled, finding Dean’s overt expressiveness quite adorable. “You’re embarrassed.”

Dean cautiously lifted his eyes, locking them to Castiel’s. “ _Maw-waw-wawh..._ ” He stopped speaking, looking crestfallen.

Castiel hummed, thinking. They had made do with communicating in guesses and frustration for days now, ever since Dean had become stuck like this, but Dean was clearly getting more and more upset.

“Here,” Castiel said, going forward with his hands out to Dean, offering to pick him up. “Come here.”

Dean blinked, then stepped into Castiel’s hands. Castiel lifted him like a baby, hands under Dean’s armpits. Dean waggled his front paws, and Castiel smiled, pulling him closer so Dean could rest against his body.

Castiel felt so delighted to hold him like this, every time, because Dean would put his cheek on Castiel’s shoulder, close his eyes, and just let Castiel carry him around. A few times today, they’d just cuddled like that because it was nice, rather than because Cas had anywhere to take Dean. What Castiel liked the most about it was that it was mutual, and neither of them called to question the need to have each other close.

But this time, he did actually have somewhere to take Dean. He walked across the bedroom and put him down on the desk, showing him the typewriter, which Dean had last used to type something he’d never continued.

**Men of Letters diary by Dean Winchester**

Dean huffed at the page, then pressed the carriage return twice, making the machine go _ding! ding!_ , quite violently.

But then he stared at the page, and turned to Castiel with a tilted head.

“What do you want to say?” Castiel asked.

Dean looked back at the page, then to Castiel. He shrugged one of his small shoulders, then sat down, tucking his tail around his paws.

Slowly, he lifted his right forepaw, and pressed a few keys. The letters struck up from inside the typewriter, hitting the page.

**heyu xas**

Castiel smiled. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean tipped his head backwards, meeting Castiel’s eyes from below as Castiel stood behind him. “ _Mow._ ”

“Tell me what you just said to me, then if I hear that sound again I can translate.”

Dean’s whiskers twitched, and he looked down at the keys. **it comess out diffrent every time, no diecrect translation**

Castiel petted him, tickling him under his chin, humming a note to himself as he thought.

Dean picked up a paw and typed again. **rly like when u do that**

Castiel chuckled, smiling warmly as Dean nestled his fluffy cheek into the cup of his hand, making his bell jingle. “Is there a reason you let me pet your whole body, and nobody else? Sam and Charlie only touch your head.”

Dean’s cheek slowed in its nuzzling. He pulled away, but didn’t start to type.

Castiel frowned, but let the query go. Dean didn’t want to answer, that was okay. So he tried another; “You, uh― I asked before, if you wanted to sleep with me?”

Dean sank down an inch or so, the tip of his tail curling. Slowly, he put a paw on the typewriter. **yeah ok**

It hadn’t really needed a typing session - all it would have taken was Castiel to pull back the covers, and Dean would have joined him, or not joined him.

“You like it, don’t you,” Castiel muttered, putting his hand on Dean’s chest, ruffling his soft fur. He felt mischievous in saying Dean’s feelings out loud, but he sort of enjoyed making Dean squirm. “You like touching me.”

Dean’s tail flickered like the tongue of a snake, a clear sign of annoyance. Castiel grinned, giving the cat a rough tug towards himself, making Dean bump into his middle. Dean didn’t resist as Castiel jostled him into his arms, lifting his entire fluffy body high above his head, arms fully outstretched. Castiel beamed at him as Dean’s paws and tail dangled down, only his eyes showing how startled he was at the sudden change in altitude.

Dean relaxed after a moment, and he reached a paw down to touch Castiel’s lip. Castiel smiled under the paw pads; they were warm, and felt like fingertips.

Sighing, Castiel lowered Dean to his chest, running a hand down his back and curving him, so now he lay belly-up in Castiel’s arms. Dean was so unbelievably pliant when it came to Castiel. With Sam, he was always jumpy, and didn’t much like being held, not even for a second. But like this, Castiel went over and sat on the side of his - Dean’s - bed, and Dean just peered up at him, blinking slowly.

Castiel wasn’t quite sure how long they sat there, Dean blinking, Castiel holding him. It was so _pleasant_.

Eventually Castiel lay backwards, shuffling so he aligned with the bed, and he draped the blanket over himself. Dean remained lying on his stomach, totally relaxed.

✖✖✖

Dean was so fucking _in love_ it wasn’t even funny. He’d tried to palm the feeling off as something else, because being in love was too fairy-tale-ish, but that was exactly what this was. Beauty and the Beast, right? Yeah.

Being with Cas like this, all wrapped up with him under a blanket, feeling his _fingers_ fiddling with his ears - that was pretty much _it_. That was all Dean wanted, ever, in all of his life. Sam was safe, Charlie and Kevin were as good as happy, Crowley and the two most-problematic planes of existence were now less of a problem, and _Cas was touching him_. Everything was perfect.

Well, except for the fact that he was a foot high and had to lick his own butt clean at least once a day. (To be honest, that was less of a problem than he felt it should be.)

Castiel grasped him without warning, dragging him closer, right up to his chest. Dean let himself be dragged, because he trusted Cas so absolutely that it bordered on scary. He had yet to think of something he _wouldn’t_ let Cas do to him.

Castiel rolled over in the bed, pressing his face into Dean’s soft belly, groaning a long and happy note into him. It made Dean sigh, because it was a heavy sound and it _vibrated_ inside him. Cas was pretty much nuzzling his belly button right now, and Dean had no idea how they got to this point in their relationship, but they got here.

“Dean,” Castiel mumbled, mouthing at fur, “Dean... you should know something...”

_Should know what?_

“Um, the collar you’re wearing?”

Dean blinked. It was so comfortable he’d almost forgotten about it. _Uh, yeah, what about it?_

“The tag.” Castiel’s hands lingered on Dean’s body, nose rubbing deep. “I... I picked the heart on purpose.”

It hadn’t taken a genius to figure as much; Dean had kinda guessed it already. Smirking, he craned his neck downward, and licked Castiel’s forehead, just once. His tongue was rough and Castiel’s forehead was smooth, with the lingering taste of Dean’s hair conditioner.

Castiel hummed a small laugh, propping his chin on Dean’s belly, looking up at Dean, whose nose was less than an inch away. His chin wasn’t really stabbing Dean, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable either. Dean said nothing, because it wasn’t important. He stretched his tongue and lapped at Castiel’s nose. Castiel grinned.

Dean went a step further, leaning his head down a bit more, and he licked Castiel’s upper lip.

Castiel’s smile fell.

Dean panicked - oh god, what if Cas didn’t want that? Dean was a cat after all, kissing totally wasn’t a cool thing to do with cats. But... Dean wanted to kiss him. So fucking badly. Just the thought of it made him feel the kind of hunger that nothing would satisfy but a _kiss_.

Castiel licked his own lips, still peering at Dean curiously.

Castiel finally made up his mind, leaning his head forward, but he didn’t put his mouth on Dean’s, only nudged his muzzle under Dean’s chin. Dean heard a kissing noise, but couldn’t feel it through his fur. It was almost heartbreaking, because _fuck_ , he wanted that kiss.

And what hurt more was knowing that Crowley got a kiss and he didn’t. Sure, that kiss had been for the greater good, but there was no point denying that it made Dean upset. Not even jealous, really. Just... upset. Fucking _Crowley_.

Castiel settled his head on the pillow, forsaking Dean’s tummy. But Dean wanted more cuddles. So, he wriggled onto his belly and crawled under Castiel’s arm, tucking himself in the crook of Castiel’s elbow and his hip.

In the light from the lamp, Castiel’s face had a line of highlight around the edge of his cheek, like a sunny rim around a cloud. Even his eyelashes twinkled a bit. Dean snuggled him, trying to tell him he was beautiful. He smelled goddamn delicious, too, and Dean wished he could get closer, even though he was already right up against his body.

Castiel put a hand on Dean’s back under the blanket, and started stroking, scratching under the band of his collar and making the bell jingle quietly. Dean melted into the touch. Cas literally had the hands of an angel. If Dean had been human, this would’ve equated to a happy-ending massage, it was just that good. Cas knew what he was doing.

Dean began to purr, and that simple noise alone felt like a weight off his shoulders. It was such a relief to have an easy way to express, quite simply, ‘I am happy, thank you’. Being human was so complicated. He couldn’t just come out and say to people, “I am happy, thank you,” because that was fucking weird. Especially for Dean.

Cas saved Dean’s brother today. Cas maybe saved the world today, too, who knows. Cas did the wrong thing for the right reasons, the same way he always did - but for once, it turned out okay. Dean could have gone apeshit over the fact Cas went behind his back to do what he did, but Dean had known beforehand that Cas was going to do a Bad Thing, because he’d overheard Cas telling Sam. So Dean was resolved to be _okay_ with it.

Yet, he’d _known_ Cas might have been about to get himself killed, and he hadn’t take a smidgen of action to prevent it.

Irony aside, Dean was a shit human being.

He put those thoughts to rest, with the intention to come back to them when he was feeling less like the sun was making love to him. They were sad, problematic thoughts, and he just wanted this moment to enjoy Castiel’s comforting hands. He had such a gentle touch.

✖✖✖

Upon waking, Castiel smiled. The room was still lit by the bedside lamp, since Castiel had fallen asleep before turning it off, but the air now had the pale quality of morning about it. Stretching slowly, arching his back, Castiel rolled onto his side, feeling a burst of warmth as he saw Dean’s fluffy body inflating and deflating as he breathed.

Castiel slid a hand through the sheets, close enough to touch Dean. Slowly, gently, he began to stroke his head.

Such soft fur. His eyes were rimmed by black, edged by eyelashes that seemed to glow in the light. He wore a curl of a smile, where the fur was sparse to show his thin lips. Under Castiel’s hand, those tall triangular ears folded back, then popped forward once more.

Castiel stroked Dean with an overwhelming feeling of satiation. Just to touch him like this was a burden lifted, and a privilege.

Something began to whistle, just faintly. Castiel recognised the noise, but was still surprised when he noticed that Dean’s collar tag was the source of the sound. The heart shape shone with light from within - Castiel didn’t have time to remove his hand from Dean’s forehead before his feline body began to change.

Castiel watched in awe as Dean’s fur retracted, his face grew, his body sliding under the sheets and pushing them into a larger mound as Dean’s shoulders spread outwards. His collar snapped at the buckle, the metal pinging away somewhere unseen. His head remained resting on the pillow, and after only a matter of seconds, he sighed, still asleep.

Human.

Castiel sent up a silent thanks to the presence in the room for bringing Dean back to normal. The presence left, and the whistling stopped.

Castiel ran his hand through Dean’s hair again. It didn’t feel the same as fur, but it felt equally as pleasant. Dean was still warm under him, still sleeping.

Castiel kept on petting him, even when Dean began to stir.

✖✖✖

Dean woke up being stroked by the same hands he’d fallen asleep to. Holy _shit_ , okay, that touch was gorgeous. He felt like fucking starlight right now, and he wondered if he’d _ever_ slept that well before.

He slitted open his eyes, pleased to see the bedside lamp still on, Castiel’s blue eyes turned almost golden by the light. He was watching Dean, and he was smiling, stroking Dean’s head, fur carded through spread fingers.

Dean ached a little from sleeping in one position. He wondered if Cas had slept at all, or if he’d simply woken up earlier. Without windows, this room gave no indicator as to the time, and Dean couldn’t see the clock past the bulk of Castiel’s body.

Stretching out his neck, Dean pushed into the touch, purring as he dragged his nose along Castiel’s inner wrist. Huh, that felt weird. It almost felt like―

Dean’s eyes opened wide.

It felt like skin-on-skin.

He inhaled, looking down at himself, seeing his bare chest, his nipples, his waist disappearing below the white sheet that had come apart from the duvet as they’d slept. Dean grasped the sheet, knowing without looking that he was naked. Oh, fuck.

Eyes darting to Castiel’s, he wanted to relax, because Cas looked so placating, like he was about to say it was okay, but it wasn’t okay, because Dean was naked, and _hard_ , and this was really fucking inconvenient because Dean was really enjoying the cuddling and now he wasn’t allowed and shit shit shit―

He backed out of the bed, pulling the blanket with him to act as thin modesty, but it was all tucked in around the edges of the mattress and it slipped out of Dean’s hand as his feet touched the carpet. Gasping, he pulled it back up, blushing because he knew Cas had seen his erection. Dean didn’t even know if it was morning wood or caused by the hair-stroking.

Gulping, Dean gestured to the bed, hand giving a tremble. “C― Need,” he breathed, having trouble with his voice. It was dry and raspy, and his breath tasted like ass. When was the last time he brushed his teeth? What the fuck had he been eating?!

Castiel was helpful, at least, pulling out the corners of the bedsheet so Dean could have it. In watching him doing so, Dean saw the upper curve Castiel’s thick, muscular thighs, and once saw his heather-grey t-shirt ride up to expose his hip bones. Dean wanted to lie between those legs and drape his paws over those hip bones - _mine_ \- but he couldn’t do that any more.

And now he was just standing there with an erection and a sheet bunched in front of his crotch, too disoriented to move. This was _his_ bedroom, but he couldn’t even jack off in his own bed because Castiel was kneeling in it, staring at him.

Then, Dean noticed the black scrap of leather that was resting in the centre of the bed, its metal clasp destroyed. The pink heart sat on the mattress beside Dean’s knee. Without overthinking it, Dean picked up the heart.

“Uh,” Dean said. He needed a shower. Hot water. “Bye.”

He stumbled to the door, grappling with the sheet. _Fuck_ , women made it look so easy in the movies, they just wrapped it around themselves and it was like a dress, but this was like a toga twice as big as it should be, and Dean couldn’t work out how many ends it had, and he was tripping over it, and Cas was watching―

He got into the hallway, slammed the door behind him, and fought back tears that sprang from nowhere.

It was over. Things were pretty much back to how they were a week ago.

He was going to miss being a cat.

✖✖✖

Not too much later that morning, Dean and Sam both roared in greeting and triumph as they landed their eyes upon each other in the kitchen, arms spread wide, falling against each other to whack the other heartily on the back.

Sam made Dean a round of coffee while Dean made enough pancakes to feed everyone in the bunker twice over, including Crowley.

“So what triggered the species switch?” Sam asked, refilling Dean’s mug so he could drink while the twenty-third pancake made its way to simmering.

“God knows,” Dean scoffed, slurping the first half-inch off his beverage. “What reason is there for anything?”

Sam sighed. “It’s kind of dissatisfying. Not knowing.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, then let them fall again as he peered into his swirling coffee. “Guess that’s life. No answers to the stuff that actually matters.”

They were quiet for a bit, and Dean used the silence to perform a perfect pancake flip, smiling to himself as the uncooked side began to sizzle.

“I think,” he said, turning around and leaning his ass against the counter, “maybe it just wore off. This was all Cas’ power’s doing, right? He gave up that last spark to save you, and it fucked itself up. But yesterday, you were dying, because whatever Cas did for you right at the start, it up and left you. Maybe we both had the same amount of Cas’ mojo in our bodies, or something, and right about the time I woke up today, that was when you would’ve... you know...”

“Taken a dirt nap?” Sam grinned. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“What’re you smiling about?” Dean asked, aware he was smiling too.

“Nothin’,” Sam smirked, fussing with the new pancake, tipping it off the spatula and onto the pile, draping the tea towel over it to keep it warm. “Just, Cas.”

“Uh?” Dean looked at his bare toes, because his toes were suddenly very interesting.

Sam nudged Dean’s side, pouring out some more pancake batter, since Dean’s mind was elsewhere, imagining the taste of maple syrup to go with the smell of perfect pancakes. “He likes you, you know.”

“Yeah,” Dean chuckled, both like it was obvious, and like he already worked that puzzle out. Sure, he’d already known, but maybe it had taken him a good few days of catdom for him to realise quite how long he’d been aware of the feeling. Feeling _s_. Plural. There were multiple feelings. And he and Cas felt them all very intensely.

“You like him back,” Sam told Dean. _Stated_ to him.

Dean looked across at Sam incredulously, head cocked, upper lip hitched at one side. “You think I don’t already know that? C’mon, Sam, he’s stuck around five years and I haven’t tried to kill him since I first met him. That says something about my tolerance, you’d think.”

Sam huffed, flipping the pancake. “Not like that.”

Dean was quiet for a bit. He resettled his position, overlapping his big toes. There was nobody else here to listen to what he had to say. And Sam already knew. Dean already knew. Where was the big deal? Nothing to hide.

“Yeah,” Dean said, breathing out. He pursed his lips, stared into his empty coffee cup, and smiled a little bit. “Yeah, I like him back.”

“Like-like him?”

“Oh, come on, what are you, eight?”

“Just say it, Dean, and I’ll let it go. No teasing, I swear.”

Dean sighed, rolling his eyes. “I’m not saying it for your benefit, dickface. You already know.”

“Saying things out loud is important, Dean.”

Dean swallowed. “Not everything needs to be said, Sammy. This thing with Cas, it’s... It’s always been unspoken. The real important stuff, we don’t talk about it. It’s not some secret, but it’s not... it’s not something we gotta confess to each other. We both know. I know, he knows. _You_ know. God, even Charlie knows. I bet it’s in those damn Carver Edlund books. I swear to god, seeing my life put down in third person is some of the weirdest shit ever, but - allow me to channel some Fox Mulder for a second - the truth is out there. People know how I feel. But I ain’t gonna say it out loud.”

Sam smiled and put the last pancake into the pile. It was smaller than the others because the batter had run out. “For someone who doesn’t say important things out loud,” Sam said, giving the basket of pancakes to Dean, looking him in the eye, “you say a lot.”

By the time he got the pancakes to the table, Dean realised that Sam was paying him a compliment.

✖✖✖

Dean and Castiel avoided each other all day. It wasn’t even on purpose - okay, it was a little bit on purpose - but neither of them knew how to act around each other throughout the few times when they were in the same place.

Cas thanked Dean for the pancakes, and that was it for the morning. After that, Cas went to his room for a nap, and Dean took a few notes about angel sightings, then caught up on his various internet feeds, dismayed he’d missed a pivotal episode of _Dr. Sexy MD_ which had spurned at least three hours’ worth of internet backlash that he didn’t have time to sift through before he had to get back to work.

Charlie and Kevin were washing graffiti off the hidden door of the bunker, and Dean left them to it. Charlie had promised him before-and-after photos to compare and contrast, because he loved those. She mentioned more than once that she prefered his face when he had whiskers.

Sam and Dean swapped places, and Sam took over the hunter business for a while. Dean went and cleaned the kitchen, because he needed something tangible to do with his hands.

Oh, that’s right. He had _hands_ now. They were nimble things, and he tried to convince himself he wasn’t in awe at how dextrous he was, but he could _write_ , and he could _point_ , and that was incredible. He missed being able to jump ten times his height, though, and he missed being able to scratch itches in impossible-to-reach places with nothing but his tongue, but all in all, it was a blessing to be a human, wearing clothes.

Clothing was his shield. He needed it to feel safe, even if it was occasionally nothing but thin cotton.

Cas had kind of disintegrated all shields, in the time they’d spent together in the last few days. His hands had been Dean’s protection, and Dean couldn’t begin to understand how reassuring that had felt. Being picked up and carried by Cas was maybe his favourite thing. Being relieved of the duty of simply walking, that was _crazy_ -good. Burdens lifted, in small ways.

Dean wondered if there was anything _he_ could do to help Cas feel the same thing. He had burdens, too.

He could ask him to stay. Then Cas wouldn’t have to decide, or worry about it. Some things _did_ need saying aloud.

✖✖✖

A few hours later, Cas offered Dean the cat toys, but Dean turned them down, because he didn’t exactly need them any more.

This wasn’t the right time - he couldn’t just tell Cas how he felt, not out of the blue. _Stay. Mine._

He turned away, hating how lost Castiel looked.

Dean then attempted to put together a case file based on everything Charlie and Kevin had left scattered over a table. The fallen angels were apparently pretty pissed off, like Cas had told Dean before. They were causing havoc, and Dean, as a Man of Letters, figured it was his next mission to investigate.

But his mind wandered. He doodled, and found he was drawing cats.

He occasionally entertained simple thoughts over the day, single words. _Want. Mine. Touch._ All things that had translated into urges while he was cat-ified. Now he had to _deal_ with the urge rather than give in to it. He had to sit _at_ the desk rather than on top. And he definitely did not need to squat over the toilet any more, he could stand. Like everything, that took some getting used to.

It occurred to him that being a cat could be equated to being a child. As a feline, he’d had fully comprehensible adult thoughts, but on a basic level, he gave in to his body’s demands, his emotions, and his urges. That was what children did, and when they didn’t get what they needed, they complained.

Now Dean couldn’t give in, and he couldn’t complain about it either. Now he had a job to do, and responsibilities, and he actually had to wait at least another eight hours before he was allowed to go to bed without looking like a lazy douchebag. Cas was a different matter - nobody minded if he took a nap mid-afternoon. But Dean judged himself on a completely different scale.

All he wanted right now was to stretch out in the sunbeam that was cast over the long central table, lie with his feet in the air, and wait until someone came by and rubbed at his ears. He sat ten feet from the sun now, staring wistfully at it.

He could do it. He could just go over there. If anyone asked, he was still adjusting to being human. They might laugh, but they’d leave him be.

But that didn’t mean he was comfortable doing it, no matter how badly he wanted to.

He finished up his report, emailed the highlights to Garth, wrote out a paper copy for Sam’s folder (shopping list: printer cartridges), then...

Wait.

Wait, what did he do now?

What did they usually do with their time? Everyone seemed busy, but Dean was done for the day. He didn’t have plans, nothing to do.

Rather than lying on the table, he went outside, saying hi to Kevin and Charlie as he left. He followed the thin valley in the dusty early-summer heat, kicking up grit against the breeze. He put his hands in his pockets, smiling.

He climbed a tree, sat on the thickest, lowest branch, and he peered out towards the bridge over the river that was just about visible through the edge of the forest. This bunker was well-hidden, and he loved that about it. He’d come out to this place a few times when he was a cat, and he’d always been back before anyone noticed he was gone - and before Sam hurt himself. It was just as good when he was human.

Nobody came looking for him for at least two hours, and in that time, he just sat. His mind was empty. After what felt like centuries of a crowded chaos of dark thoughts, he’d freed himself.

 _Cas_ freed him. Bad things happened, but it turned out they weren’t so bad after all. Dean becoming a cat had been a blessing in disguise, and that included the fact that letting Sam pet his ears had warded off the worse symptoms for a while. Dean couldn’t vouch that doing the same as a human would have had the same effect. Maybe Cas had saved them a few times over, after all.

When the sun started to go down and it got cold, Dean went back inside, admiring the freshly graffiti-free door in the dip at the side of the road.

Everyone still seemed to be working - even Cas was filing away books in the library. Dean took the time alone to make everyone dinner. Shepherd's pie, from scratch. Turned out awesome.

Cas smiled at him a few times while they ate. It made Dean warm to the tips of his toes, and he even caught his brain signalling an instruction to his curl his tail, which obviously went nowhere.

After dinner, Kevin and his chinchilla returned to somewhere quiet to translate a bit more of the prophetic tablets. Dean resisted the urge to shout after Kevin, with the smart suggestion to name the rodent ‘Chewbacca’. He figured Kevin would decide eventually, what with the note Dean left on the cage and everything.

Dean spent his evening hunting through the multitude of the bunker’s storage rooms, looking for something long and thin, like string. Finally, in a far-distant cupboard, he found a long leather strap, and he smiled, because it was perfect.

Sneaking into the bathroom, where there was more light, he put a hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the pink heart-shaped tag.

It pleased him just to see it, sitting there in his hand. It was clearly cut by a machine, but that didn’t stop Dean from pretending Cas folded the metal and cut it out himself, then painted it specially for Dean, carving his name on it by hand.

Dean looped the leather strap through the tag’s hole, and pulled it so it hung straight. It was tied so it wouldn’t slip to the ends of the strap, and Dean could now tie it as a necklace.

He missed the amulet Sam had given him. One of the first times Dean realised how much he felt for Cas was when the angel had turned up and told Dean that his most precious belonging was worthless. Seeing Cas so starved of hope and practically blaming the amulet for his Father’s loss, Dean found he did, too. That amulet was the bond between the three of them: gifted from Sam to Dean, then joining Castiel and Dean with their absent fathers. If the necklace meant failure to Cas, then it meant failure to Dean, too. So he discarded it.

Now Dean had a new one, joining them both, symbolising everything that the amulet didn’t. Dean’s own name hung on his neck. He almost laughed to himself, comparing it to a dog tag. Maybe it was a bit too prissy for that comparison - and something that would likely get him shot if his father had still been around, but it made him smile.

That seemed to be all that mattered. He wanted to surround himself with things that made him feel safe, at ease, and happy. This bunker was one such thing. Cas was another. And, in a way, this heart represented both. Cas’ love, and... home. Cas was Dean’s partner, his friend, his family. Like his car. Like his brother. Something, someone he adored. Someone truly and completely special to him.

✖✖✖

Castiel arrived at Dean’s bedroom door at the same time Dean did.

They stood parallel to it, Castiel’s hand on its handle, Dean standing with his hands in his front pockets, plaid sleeves rolled to his elbow. He had a quirky smile on one corner of his lips.

Castiel internally acknowledged the problem here, then sighed, and said it out loud, not letting go of the door handle. “This is your room.”

Dean wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, eyes shifting downwards. “Yeah. Um.”

“I could make up another room, it’s fine,” Castiel said, letting go of the handle, fingertips the last to leave the now-warm metal curve. He let out a breath and started on down the hallway, knowing there were more rooms free.

He didn’t want to go, but he had known since he arrived at the bunker that it would come to this.

“Cas! Cas, wait―”

Castiel found his hand caught with Dean’s. He turned to see them clasped, Dean’s fingers tense around the side of Castiel’s palm. Castiel flooded with unexpected heat. His eyes followed Dean’s arm up, and peered back at the eyes that searched him from a foot away. Dean’s lower lip was tucked under his upper lip, and he was nibbling it nervously, like a torrent of second-guessing thoughts was bursting inside his mind.

His eyes gave Castiel a clear picture, however, as did the physical gesture: he wanted Castiel to sleep beside him.

Dean took a step back and pulled. Castiel smiled, following. As Dean’s lips parted, and his eyes turned to the door, Castiel heard a shaky exhale pushed from his mouth.

Dean let go of Castiel’s hand as they crossed the threshold into the room. Dean went ahead and turned on the bedside lamp while Castiel closed the door.

Dean kept his head and eyes down, saying nothing.

Castiel swallowed, unsure if he was meant to undress first, if they were meant to turn their backs, if Dean had a pattern he liked to keep to that Castiel might get in the way of. Dean answered his first unspoken question not a moment later, when he threw his overshirt onto the nearby chair, then tugged his t-shirt over his head, leaving his torso bare.

Castiel stood and watched, and found he was answering his second unspoken question himself: he was unable to look away when Dean undid his jeans and slung them to the floor, kicking off his boots and socks. His legs were slim and curved outward at the knee, and Castiel very much enjoyed looking at them. Especially his thighs.

Dean looked up once he was in his underwear only. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look upset in the slightest. “You gonna strip, or is that too weird now I’m human again?” He smiled then, and Castiel smiled back.

“It is peculiar,” Castiel said quietly. “Somehow I... I didn’t visualise you the same way, in the same mentality when you were feline. As if somehow it wasn’t important that I was naked and you were... you had your eyes open.”

Dean folded his jeans over his hands, watching what he was doing. There was a tall smirk on one side of his mouth. “Guess I freaked a bit.” There seemed to be more to that statement, as Dean took a small breath, but he didn’t continue. He looked across at Castiel again, and repeated, “You sleeping in your day clothes, then?”

Castiel opened his mouth, eyes darting to the chest of drawers beside him. “I require underwear.”

“Help yourself.”

“You don’t mind?” Castiel said, eyes on Dean while he opened the drawer. He then set his eyes on the messy lines of cotton and other fabrics, most of which were dark in colour.

“Nah,” came Dean’s voice from behind him, along with the _pluff_ of him sitting heavily onto his mattress. “We oughta get some more, though, since if you’re sharing, we’d go through it twice as fast.”

Castiel frowned, picking a fresh pair of boxers, wondering why Dean hadn’t simply said they would get Castiel some of his own.

Castiel unbuttoned his shirt with his back to Dean, slipping it off and draping it over where Dean had thrown his own. His t-shirt followed, as did his jogging pants. Castiel made a note to ask Dean if he could borrow some jeans tomorrow morning; he didn’t feel comfortable wearing dirty pants.

He smiled as he took off his underwear and replaced them with a fresh pair. He knew Dean was watching.

He turned around, still smiling. Dean looked nonchalantly back, a small smile playing on his lips, which seemed almost comical. At least he wasn’t shocked this time.

Castiel liked this game. They seemed to be testing each other’s boundaries and limits, and they had yet to hit a wall. Castiel wondered how far this night might take them, should they continue this way.

Dean stood up off the bed and tugged back the covers, which Castiel had made badly that morning. Without the white sheet, which Dean had run off with when he woke up, they only had the woollen duvet directly against the undersheet. Castiel wondered aloud if might be somewhat rough on their skin, but Dean only shrugged.

“It’s kinda nice to be naked under a wool blanket. So long as you don’t get sweaty.”

“I have no intention of... sweating.”

Dean smirked, clambering between the sheets on the left of the bed, legs splayed, then together. The sight of him lying back so invitingly made Castiel excited.

“C’mon,” Dean muttered, pulling down the opposite side of the blanket, tilting his head towards the single pillow. “You take the pillow, I’m good.”

A part of Castiel was still a little stunned that they were really doing this. “Dean,” he said, climbing into bed, lying parallel to the other man. “Dean, are you really okay with this?”

Dean lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. He gave a breathy laugh. “Honestly? ...No, not really. I’m freaking out.”

“You seem calm.”

Dean swallowed, closing his eyes. A hand skimmed upward on his chest to touch something that was attached to a thin string which rested against his collarbone. “I’m okay.”

Castiel shifted closer, admiring Dean’s freckles, even the ones that covered his shoulders. In the golden light from the bedside lamp, he was radiant. Against Dean’s shoulder, Castiel put a kiss.

Dean gasped, eyes opening. His fingers clutched tighter around whatever was in his hand. The corners of his mouth shivered upwards, as he continued staring at the ceiling. “D... Did you just kiss me?”

“Yes. Would you like me to do it again?”

Dean trembled. Slowly - so slowly, he nodded.

Castiel kissed his collarbone, breathing out. He felt blissful, to be doing this.

Dean made a soft sound, released breath, tumbling from his mouth. “O- On my lips?”

Castiel’s body roared with flame, but he controlled the fire with a breath, and found himself floating closer to Dean, eyes low so he could see Dean’s parted lips, the red curve of them. He was less than an inch from meeting his lips when Dean lifted his head instead, connecting their mouths.

Dean made a sound from the back of his throat, strong and weak at once. _Mmh_.

Dean was kissing Castiel. _Kissing_ him.

Their lips tested; Dean parted like a gate, and he let Castiel’s tongue be the first to breach. Dean tasted like toothpaste, a stinging freshness that had been dulled by his saliva. There was a tang to it, but compared to the guttural _punch_ of feeling and emotion that Castiel experienced, the taste was nothing. The feel of it - oh, how it _felt_ , that was what was mind-blowing.

Dean’s hand was sinking into Castiel’s hair, fingers light as well as controlling as they pressed Castiel into his mouth. Dean’s legs rolled against Castiel’s - he felt Dean’s leg hair, the slight curve in his muscle and bone. Castiel lost track of his limbs, knowing he was not moving intentionally, but still thinking of a sensation: floating, falling? _Flying_.

Dean made that indescribable sound again, the hungry one, the happy one. He gasped forward, moving for more, eyelashes casting a tickle against Castiel’s cheek, just like Dean’s whiskers had done last night. His lips smacked wet, and Castiel accidentally whimpered.

“Oh,” Dean breathed.

The kiss broke, and Dean set his head down against the pillow - they’d moved together far enough that it was right under Dean’s head. Dean sighed, eyes set intently on Castiel’s.

Castiel was at a loss for coherent thought. Seeing Dean dark-eyed, red-lipped, and at total ease pushed all understanding of the world into places less perfect than this.

Castiel wanted to kiss more. He moved his head downward, putting his mouth on Dean’s. Dean moaned, surging softly into the connection, tongue lapping a tender line against the split of Castiel’s mouth. Castiel’s teeth felt the warmth of his muscle, and he was enticed by that particular sensation, among all the innumerable others.

His right hand slid fingertips up Dean’s chest, finding a nipple, then―

Castiel recognised the shape under his fingers. He slid out of the kiss with a breath, and set his warmth-blurred gaze on what he held. “You kept this,” he whispered, smiling.

Dean’s hand touched the side of Castiel’s face. Castiel was prompted to meet his eye, and smiled as Dean smirked. “Meant somethin’ I liked, so...”

Castiel turned his face a little and kissed Dean’s wrist. Dean breathed. His teeth left small dents in his own lower lip as he bit it, then let it free. His eyes seemed bare as they looked Castiel’s face over, eyelashes flickering, catching the light.

“Cas...?”

Castiel kissed Dean’s nose, then rested his lips there, eyes barely open as he answered, “Yes, Dean?”

Dean didn’t reply for a few long moments, so Castiel opened his eyes. Dean huffed a laugh, nosing Castiel away as he grinned. The grin fell, and he began to look at Castiel with a heavy, dark gaze again.

Castiel felt consumed by that look. Almost struggling to speak, Castiel whispered, “Was there something you wanted?”

Dean licked his lips, his tongue putting a shimmer on the rounded shapes of his mouth. “Right now? Uh... maybe... kiss me some more?”

Castiel let his eyelashes roam Dean’s cheek; he heard their flick as he opened them wide to look carefully at Dean’s eye from close up. “You enjoy it? Kissing?”

Dean murmured a pleasant note. “Yeah. You do too, huh.”

Castiel chuckled, mouth closed, his chin tipping to his sternum. “Yeah,” he grinned, feeling how swollen his lips had become. He exhaled slowly, meeting Dean’s eye again. “Perhaps I could rub your tummy too?”

Dean laughed - a sudden and startlingly loud sound, right beside Castiel’s ears. Dean quietened almost immediately, but the amusement didn’t leave his eyes, keeping them shining with stars. “Rub all you want, Cas. I ain’t purring.”

“Ah,” Castiel grinned, lowering his face with his mouth open. With his words brushing the stubble at the side of Dean’s mouth, he said, “You lack the necessary equipment.”

Dean scoffed. “All my _equipment_ is in working order. In c―... Uh, I mean. In case you didn’t notice.”

Castiel had noticed. However, he had not paid neither his erection nor Dean’s much attention besides noticing that they were present. He bit down on Dean’s chin, making Dean gasp briefly. Castiel supposed they both revelled in these strange sensations, these new, fun ways to inflict pleasure on each other. And comfort, too. Their hands were joined under the blanket, and Castiel did not know how long they’d been holding tight to one another.

With his free hand, Castiel skimmed Dean’s belly, palm rasping against the flat skin of Dean’s stomach. Dean cooed with his mouth shut, eyelids closing as he smiled a little. Castiel put a kiss to his throat, then his jugular vein, then the hot muscle that connected shoulder to neck. He bit down, there, only lightly - Dean’s erection pounded, moving the blanket. Castiel set a single kiss in the place he had bitten, and moved on, with a trail of touch left by the tip of his nose.

He breathed in Dean’s scent. It was flat, masculine, _human_ , and shot colour into Castiel’s mind as perfectly as it always did. Skin, as opposed to fur, carried a milky taste on his tongue. Fur, as opposed to skin, had smelled dustier, sweeter, warmer. He had enjoyed the sensation of a purring cat where he had rested his head, but he also enjoyed the long, contained groans that Dean gave as Castiel kissed his tattooed heart.

“Cas? ...Cas, wanna―”

Castiel lifted his head, waiting for an instruction, or any other word. Dean wore a frown, eyes dizzy with what Castiel now recognised as lust. His cheeks were flushed pink, and he was beautiful, maybe more than usual. He was raw like this.

“Wanna tell you,” Dean swallowed, then went on, “that I feel - happy. And I want―”

His head fell back to the pillow, and he moaned, almost nasally. Castiel raised his body so he was over Dean, one thigh slipped between each of Dean’s so he could feel both their wet, clothed erections trapped between the muscles of their hips.

“What is it, Dean?”

Dean pumped his hips upward, then took either side of Castiel’s face between his hands and forced him to descend to meet his lips in a long and heated kiss. Dean gasped and bit into the embrace, hips rising and falling to rub on Castiel; the two of them coiled their legs together and apart, affected by the pressures in their bodies, the need to move.

Dean growled and broke the kiss, mouth wide open, both hands still clasping Castiel’s cheeks, fingers apart around his ears.

One last time, as he was apparently unable to resist, Dean darted up and gave Castiel a fast kiss, then prepared his shaking mouth to speak.

“Want,” he said, “you to...”

Castiel expected a sexual favour, which he had been hoping for in the back of his mind - but he was also hoping Dean would ask for him to hold his hand tighter, maybe tickle his tummy or stroke him like he would when he was a cat. Maybe even pick him up and cuddle him. Castiel would have expected any of those requests. But he was not expecting Dean to whisper, “Want you to stay. Stay... with me. Please.”

Castiel explored Dean’s eyes, vision skipping between one green beauty and the other. “Stay,” he echoed.

Dean quirked a little grin. “Like you say to dogs, maybe? Heh. Uh, n― No, like. Like. For real. Like, don’t leave.”

“This bed?”

“My life.”

Castiel slowly shut his mouth, understanding now. “Oh. Oh, I see.”

Dean swallowed, then kissed Castiel with their eyes still open. Dean pulled back and lay against his pillow once more, thumbs stroking shapes on Castiel’s temples. “Stay ‘cause I want you here. But only if you want to be here. If you want to go―”

“I don’t,” Castiel said immediately, but did not elaborate, because he wondered: _did_ he want to stay? He had nothing to offer.

But Dean’s request was not for his power or his help, since, as Charlie had said, that was not the reason Dean wanted him here. The question was: did he was to _stay_?

Well, of course he did.

“Just tell me why,” Castiel asked, stroking Dean’s hair back off his forehead, realising it was quite sweaty, as was his hand. “Why ask me?”

Dean rolled a word around his mouth, then spoke. “...Because... Cas...” He took a breath, then let it go. “Because I - I don’t want to have to forgive you again.”

Castiel didn’t understand.

Dean frowned, shook his head, and brought Castiel in for another kiss. “Not now.” He kissed him. “Just make me feel good, okay? That’s all I want. Make us feel good.”

Castiel tried to process his thoughts at the same time as he kissed, but found the kiss took precedence. Touch was overwhelming, this feeling of love and pleasure that Dean offered him was breathtaking. He wanted nothing else, same as Dean.

His hand slid downward, taking a journey past Dean’s cheek, the back of of his fingers sliding a caress against his skin. Thumb in Dean’s mouth, he huffed a small laugh as Dean bit him. Replacing that thumb with gentle lips, Castiel used his hand instead to trace the curve of Dean’s throat, feeling his Adam’s apple bob under his fingertips. Dean grunted a breath, releasing warm air.

Castiel touched his clavicle, mapping the shape of it, the sharp lines, and where those straight bones were really curves. Dean’s freckled skin stuttered over the bone as Castiel dragged it.

When Castiel’s hand made it to Dean’s left nipple, and he began to finger it, Dean made a sound that was not too far from a purr. He smiled into their kisses, rolling his lips, passing affirming noises into Castiel’s mouth.

Castiel plucked at the nipple, and played with it until Dean bucked his hips, pushing his erection onto Castiel’s skin. He was very hard. Castiel’s fingertips skittered onward, downward, tickling a little and making Dean puff a breathy chuckle against Castiel’s chin.

Castiel’s hand found the hot shape that was wetting Dean’s boxers; Castiel fingered the damp spot, locating the place all the fluid originated. It was hottest there, and as he touched, Dean whined, breaking the kiss as his back arched upward into Castiel’s body, hungry for more contact.

“Yes!” Dean gasped out. “C’mon, Cas... _Ohh_ hh...”

Castiel twisted his wrist, peering down to watch Dean’s jagged breath shake from his mouth, watch the blush spread across his bright cheeks, eyelashes batting. He listened for Dean’s moans. In his hand, Castiel grasped the whole of Dean’s length, the heel of his hand at its head, his fingertips cupping the base, just where the hard flesh met Dean’s scrotum.

Dean stilled for a moment, an exhale catching in his throat. A long, squeaky drift of air escaped, his eyelashes ceasing their butterfly-wing flickers.

Castiel rubbed, then squeezed.

Dean gasped, tensing. He looked sharply into Castiel’s eyes, and Castiel offered his untempered devotion in return, but grew concerned that Dean only frowned. He seemed worried.

“Dean?” Castiel whispered, squeezing a little less hard.

Dean put his lips together between his teeth, hiding their colour. As he released them, he also released a breath. “C― Cas, I don’t...” His eyes shot away as he turned his head off to the side, eyes breaking contact with Castiel’s. “I can’t...”

Castiel looked down, peeking between the blanket, but he couldn’t see far enough to see if he was touching Dean wrong. He eased his grip, letting go completely. He raised his eyebrows when Dean relaxed, letting go of a discomfort that Castiel hadn’t noticed was building.

Almost silent, Dean breathed, “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” Castiel asked gently, fingers finding Dean’s hand as he wrapped his fist around the pink tag. Dean let go of the tag to hold Castiel’s hand instead.

“‘m not ready,” Dean said, staring at the side of the room.

Castiel blinked. “Ready to―”

“For sex. With you.”

Castiel’s mouth rounded on words that didn’t form. “Huh.”

Dean licked his lips, blinking a few times. “It’s not― It’s not you, it’s... Shit, how do I say this without using a crappy line? Uh.” Dean set his head properly on the pillow, looking at the ceiling, then at Castiel, who was still leaning over him, body pressing down. “I’m okay with the kissing and the touching, that’s great. Better than great.” He managed an honest, playful smile, which Castiel returned easily.

“But uh,” Dean went on, fingering Castiel’s sternum, watching his fingers, “I’ve never done this. Touching a guy like this.”

“I’ve never touched anyone else like this,” Castiel breathed, smiling. He met Dean’s eye fully, and his smile brightened. “I don’t think I want to, not after you.”

Dean’s face showed his surprise, but he did not comment directly.

Instead, he went on, “I guess I don’t have much weight on that, not knowing what I’m doing? You’re even less sure than I am.”

“Oh, no - I’m sure,” Castiel corrected, twining their fingers closer. “I want to do this with you.”

Dean looked pained, lower lip trembling before he caught it under his teeth.

Castiel considered him, and thought aloud, “You’re scared.”

Dean gulped.

“What of?” Castiel asked.

✖✖✖

For fuck’s sake. Of all the things to freak out about and make him hit the panic button. _I just want it to be perfect, and I couldn’t bear it if it wasn’t perfect._

“I freaked out, is all,” Dean said, before swallowing.

God, he wanted out. He felt cold with shame and embarrassment, and his mood was going downhill fast. “Can we sleep?”

Castiel’s mouth fell open. “It’s over?”

Dean took a small breath. “We’ll... do it some other time, Cas, promise.” He only hoped he could hold himself to that.

Castiel looked both confused and upset, and that was exactly what Dean was afraid of. “Dean―”

Dean panted for breath he didn’t remember losing, and he wriggled out from under Castiel, curling in on himself. He was still erect, but the stiffness was waning. He felt gross and nasty now, and all he needed was―

Cas kissed his shoulder, a soft brush of lips and stubble against skin. Dean felt warm hands caressing his lower back, slipping over his hip. He worried that Cas might attempt to get him back on track, but the fondling ended there. Dean felt soft, heated breaths passed against the nape of his neck, which relaxed him.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” Dean said again.

“There isn’t anything to be sorry about; you don’t need to explain yourself to me. Get some sleep.” Castiel reached up and over Dean, turning out the light. Dean was grateful for the darkness, because he wondered if he might cry.

He’d wanted this so very badly, and he got to the crest of everything, and panic took over, for what he could only call the most prideful of reasons. Unless he was totally, absolutely ready, it wasn’t going to be right. He knew already that if it was with Cas, it needed to be _just right_. Their first kiss had already been fucked over, and that had been Dean’s fault too. He should have at least remembered he wasn’t human.

In the dark, under the blanket, Castiel rubbed Dean’s tummy. Dean hummed a laugh. “Cas, what’re you doing?”

“Shh, Dean,” Castiel soothed, a sweet hush against Dean’s skin. “Purr for me.”

“I can’t―”

“Just make a noise.”

Dean smirked. “Purr, purr, purr.”

Castiel hummed a thanks, kissing Dean’s shoulder, slipping his fingers between Dean’s, locking them together. Dean liked that.

“Goodnight, Dean.”

Dean grinned. “Mow.” ( _I love you._ )

Castiel laughed, pulling himself closer. “I hope that means what I think it means.”

Dean smiled, because yeah, it did.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean woke up to an empty bed. He’d expected to be wrapped in comforting arms, but serve him right for not putting out.

He sighed and pulled on his clothes, noting that Castiel had pinched a pair of his jeans, the nice slimline ones. Yeah, they’d totally suit his legs. Dean looked forward to seeing him wearing them.

As he was washing his face in the bathroom, Dean caught sight of his reflection. He smiled, because Cas had kissed those lips last night. He felt good, even though they hadn’t completed what they’d built. Dean sighed, and hoped to himself that he would be able to give Cas what they both wanted soon.

Breakfast was better than normal, because Cas cooked it. Sam rolled his eyes as he sat down, giving Dean the distinct impression that he had helped Cas to cook it properly.

Castiel only met Dean’s eye once as he served him, but that was not to say that the contact was brief. Dean felt fingers on the back of his neck, soothing, and his heart thumped with a lively beat, seeing that tiny, tiny smile Castiel wore. Dean was melting inside - and at the risk of reading his life from a cliched romance novel, he’d never felt quite that way before.

Loving Cas was different to normal love. Loving Cas had become so ingrained in Dean’s self as whole that it was effortless. Working for a real _relation_ ship was - and forever would be - the hard part, but the actual feeling of warmth and the connection came to him naturally.

Dean ate his bacon and was satisfied.

He hummed as he washed the dishes, rocking out on a small scale while Cas dried what he’d washed. Castiel, at some unknown point in time, had learned the lyrics to Joey Scarbury’s ‘ _Believe It Or Not_ ’, and in the hour they spent together in the kitchen, they probably did more singing and laughing than they did dishwashing.

(The jeans definitely suited him. Dean might have grabbed his ass a few times.)

The time came for the fire to simmer low, however, and while the bubbly feeling didn’t leave Dean, he sat down at the table and pulled his laptop out, since he had actual hunter-y things to do. Housework was fun, but he couldn’t do it forever.

He checked his emails. One was from Garth, which caught Dean’s eye because the header read _URGENT URGENT URGENT READ THIS NOW_.

“Ahhh, crap,” Dean sighed, folding his hand over his eyes and pushing his laptop away.

“What, what’s up?” Kevin asked, setting his chinchilla’s cage down on the table, before adjusting the water bottle and its protruding straw-like spout. Dean was momentarily distracted by the fact he no longer felt the urge to eat the rodent inside the cage.

But, once he looked away, Dean blew a raspberry. “The angels that don’t have vessels are messing shit up worldwide. I mean, sure, throw a bunch of dickhead babies onto a new planet. It was only a matter of time, right?”

Kevin hummed a dull note and sat down. “You gonna go hunt them?”

Dean exhaled and flopped against the chair’s back. “Yeah.”

He didn’t want to leave the bunker. He liked having a bed and a decent shower within arm’s reach. While he missed driving his car cross-country, he wouldn’t say no to another week off - he needed time to think, and process all these new feelings, all the discoveries he’d made about himself. But fuck that, he was a hunter. He didn’t get time to _think_.

Dean began compiling info, adding to everything he’d done yesterday. He figured school projects might have been something like this, had he ever turned them in when he was supposed to. Another reason staying put was great: it gave him time to work. He hated typing in a moving car.

Kevin picked up his pet and strolled away after a while, claiming that Dean got too grumpy when he was working and had a tendency to fidget. Dean sneered at Kevin’s retreating back, betting himself the kid still hadn’t named his stupid squirrel. That thing fidgeted ten times as much as Dean did, and Kevin wasn’t complaining about _that_.

But now he was alone, Dean used the quiet to help him compose his thoughts.

People all over the planet were being visited by what they thought were ghosts, loved ones from long ago, but those ghosts were really angels. The angels needed a body to really be part of this world: the people gave permission to their ghosts, and just like that, the angels had them possessed. Dean would be fine with that - kind of - if it weren’t for his knowledge that most people didn’t fare well as angel vessels. People would be dying soon, and Dean had no idea what to do about that.

He and Sam had to leave tonight, if they were actually going to help anybody. God only knew what they would do. Besides, their jurisdiction ended at the coast, but the rest of the world was just as fucked as here.

Head in his hands, Dean sighed slowly.

He inhaled as he felt a hand caress his ear, then the top of his head. Fingertips ran down his spine, wrinkling his shirt. Holy crap, it felt amazing.

He straightened, smiling. “Hey, Cas.”

Castiel moved to sit beside Dean, pulling out a chair and perching on its edge. Dean relaxed against his own chair, angling it so he faced Cas a bit more.

“Busy?” Castiel asked.

Dean inclined his head, flicking a finger at his laptop screen. “Angels.”

Castiel glanced warily at the papers that lay on the table. As he skim-read them, his face drew blank over his smile, and he began to look as if a shadow had crept inside him. Dean watched him carefully, until Castiel opened his mouth to speak, still looking at the papers.

“If there is a way to return them to Heaven―”

“That’s what Kevin’s working on,” Dean assured him. “Reverse Metatron’s spell.”

Castiel nodded, pushing the papers away and cresting his fingers beneath his stubbled chin. He made the chair creak as he leaned back.

Dean caught his eye, and managed a smile. “It’s not your fault.”

Castiel lowered his eyes.

“It’s not,” Dean repeated. “You told me Metatron tricked you. We’ve all done that, okay - trusted the wrong person. Sam and Ruby, right?” Dean gave a reassuring press of lips as Castiel met his gaze. “You and Metatron. Me and... whoever.”

Castiel closed his eyes.

“Not you,” Dean said quietly. “You fucked up, Cas, but I still trust you. You’ve earned it a thousand times over, ‘kay? And it’s not even a case of... earning it. Cas, look at me.”

Castiel looked up. Blue eyes. Sunlight.

“I trust you,” Dean said. “I - I forgive you. And I’m sorry.”

He nodded after he said those last three words, because those were the most important. “I’m sorry for not being the easiest person to talk to. Some things make me mad when I hear them, you know that. But you and me should both take me being mad over one of us being dead. All right?”

Castiel’s eyelids fell half-closed, gaze on the table. “All right.”

Dean felt like the door was opened wider now, so he went on, “Every one of us has made mistakes. Breached each other’s trust, and whatever else. But the point is, we learn from mistakes. That’s what makes us good hunters, Cas. Our lives are trial-and-error, but we take from the misses as much as we take from the hits. Point is, we gotta stick like glue. Not lie, and not hide things. And...” Dean swallowed, “be up-front if something’s not working. Even if it should feel good, but it just doesn’t. Maybe the time’s not right. But... it’ll happen.”

Castiel’s smirk was nearly undetectable. “You’re talking about sex now.”

Dean huffed under his breath. “Or - or whatever, you know.”

Castiel was quiet for a while, and Dean said nothing either, just observed the other man.

He had such nice curves in his arms, and where his shirtsleeves were rolled up, Dean could see the smooth muscles in his forearms. He imagined himself in those arms the way he had been a couple of days ago; feline touch was so obtainable, whereas human touch was less so.

Dean pined for Castiel’s hands in his hair again, but said nothing. His holding back was hypocritical to his speech, possibly.

“I lied,” Castiel said, suddenly, breaking the silence with soft words. “I lied to you, the other day. I said nothing when I should have, and I know that’s sometimes the same thing as lying.” He met Dean’s eye, and unfolded his hands from under his chin, setting them on his knees instead. As he leaned forward, his hands slipped to hold each other between his parted legs. “I didn’t tell you anything before I made the deal with Crowley.”

“I heard you,” Dean said, guilt curling taut in his stomach. “I heard you talking to Sam and I didn’t stop you.”

Castiel considered that for a few seconds, then took a short breath in. “I was willing to let myself die to save Sam.”

Dean shut his eyes, head drooping. He felt an almighty sadness, but it was still covered over with relief that Cas was still kicking. Dean sighed and nodded, leaning forward to mirror Castiel’s position. Their knees touched. “I’m glad you didn’t. Uh― Glad you didn’t die, I mean. Not save Sam. Thank you for that.” Dean gave a bright, heartfelt smile, which Castiel returned in equal force.

Realising Dean ought to say his words clearly, he licked his lips and spoke, forcing thoughts into sentences: “Cas, I forgive you. For all the shit you did before. Anything you think I’m mad about, I’m not mad. Just learn from your mistakes and we’re good. You going to Crowley the other day, that can be the last time,” Dean said. His gaze fixed on Castiel’s and held it. “Clean slate.”

Castiel’s throat bobbed as he gulped. Eventually he tipped his head down, nodding. “For both of us. I forgive you too.”

Dean couldn’t even fight him on that. He knew perfectly well he’d been a crappy friend over the past few years, if not longer. It was only now that he actually understood how friendship was meant to work, and he was getting there. He figured it wasn’t a crime to be proud of that - which he was. “All right.”

Castiel smiled and sank back into his chair. He grinned a little at Dean. “I feel better now.”

Dean chuckled, letting his head fall low between his shoulders. “Yeah.”

He felt lighter. If Cas felt better too, that was good.

After a few long moments, Dean gave another smile and turned back to his pages, scuffing a few into his hands to look them over.

They had no answer to the angel vessel problem, but all in good time. It was Kevin’s turn to shine. While they waited on him, it couldn’t hurt to check out a few surrounding areas, see how things were doing. If they were going out, they ought to leave before it got dark tonight.

He told Castiel that thought, but became unsettled when Castiel’s frown returned and he looked away.

“You’re coming with, right?” Dean asked.

“Dean... They want to kill me. The angels.”

“Cas,” Dean breathed, on the brink of nervous laughter, “we survived Purgatory. Everything in that place wanted you dead, and you made it a goddamn year without so much as a broken bone. We had each other’s backs. You survived it by yourself for a few weeks, for god’s sake. You really believe a few toddling angels are gonna get their hands on you? You think I’d _let_ them?”

Castiel seemed only minorly reassured.

Dean knew Cas was scared, but unlike Castiel had voiced the previous night, awareness of the other man’s fear did not need stating aloud.

“You can stay behind,” Dean offered, voice quiet. “Someone needs to feed Kevin while he does his thing, anyway. And Crowley, for that matter.”

“What about Charlie?”

Dean shrugged. “Charlie’s not part of this. We oughta leave her out of it as best we can. Don’t need another Winchester martyred.”

Castiel smiled in a slightly upset way. He turned his face away from Dean’s, perhaps to hide further emotion.

“My mortality bothers me,” Castiel sighed, still looking at a distant corner of the library. “I don’t want to die.”

“Good.” Dean reached out and put his hand on Castiel’s thigh. He squeezed. “That’s good, Cas.”

Life was short, and Dean knew that well.

...In fact, life was short enough that Dean wondered if this might be the last few hours he and Cas had together. Any time they were apart, either of them could die. That was always how it had been, but it seemed more immediate now. Their relationship had altered over the past week, to such a degree that Dean knew he would ache far more than usual if he was apart from Castiel for too long. If they were separated forever, that ache would never leave him.

And that ache would be made infinitely worse if Dean did not allow himself to do with Castiel what they both wanted to do.

Screw perfection. Dean took Castiel’s hand, holding it as he tugged. “C’mere, Cas.”

They had to start somewhere, even if it was messy, faulted exploration. Why not just go for it? Tell each other things. Be honest. There was no time for holding back. Dean wanted Cas to know _everything_.

“Dean, where―”

“My room,” Dean answered, pulling Castiel by the hand across the library, taking him to the foot of the staircase that led up.

“Are we going to―”

“Yep.”

Dean began to buzz with excitement as he climbed ahead of Castiel. Castiel followed without resistance to the top of the stairs, then through the tiled corridors.

Dean turned back to Castiel and spoke again as they were halfway there, correcting himself. “Not my room. Our room.”

Castiel’s breath hitched, and Dean beamed at him.

Dean shut the door behind them as they entered, and they fumbled in the dark. Dean couldn’t see, Cas was as blind as he was, but they panted and groped, laughing as they fell into the bed, legs caught on the end of it. Dean arched into the mattress, grinning as he wriggled his way over to the bedside lamp.

The light of it flashed complete vision across the room, and Dean smirked as he turned around to see Castiel throwing his shirt to the floor. “Eager, huh?”

Castiel half-crawled, half-dived towards Dean. He was dark-eyed and smiling. “Very.”

Dean’s breath shook as he parted his legs and let Castiel sink his body between them. Dean pushed away the flash of doubt that had flooded him last night - he was ready for this, and he always had been. All he’d been afraid of was change.

Being with Cas was the end for Dean. His life bedding women was over. And Dean accepted that like old news now, because he had nothing to be afraid of. He’d been waiting for this day; somehow, it was relief.

Castiel kissed him with the sweetness of distant, twinkling stars on a clear night. He pulled moans from Dean that were not from sexual pleasure, nor apathetic in the slightest - he moaned in hunger and need, mouth surging and searching for kisses. Dean’s body curled into the arms that held him, and felt himself wrapped tight.

Every small vocalisation that broke from his open lips came out in the tone of a question, through no fault of his own. All were brief, breathy, and he frowned as he kissed, mouth so empty of tongue until it was filled.

But then, “Ah - ah! Wait―” Dean’s body shook, and he had to wrench away from Castiel again, something akin to panic arriving immediately in him. He stood up at the side of the bed, hands combing back through his hair, then rubbing down over his face. He sighed.

“Dean, what’s the matter?”

Dean peeked out between his fingers at the man lying topless on his bed, bare stomach to the wrinkled wool blanket, jeans slipping from his hips. His hair was messy, lips reddened.

Dean searched for the right words. “It’s... It’s too _much_.”

Castiel blinked, eyes roaming down Dean’s form. When he met Dean’s eye again, he sat back, kneeling. The memory foam mattress left his body’s indent where he’d been lying a moment before.

Dean swallowed, setting a knee on the edge of the bed, but going no further. “I want... I do want this,” Dean assured Cas. “It’s weird. I love what we’re doing, all of it. Just, I close my eyes...” Dean frowned and covered his face with a palm. “I want this to be different. Different to how it is when I sleep with anyone else. Not ‘cause you’re a guy. But you’re―”

“I’m special?”

Castiel was looking up at Dean with the wonder and innocence of the curious, confused angel he once was.

Dean smiled. “Yes. Yeah, Cas. You are. You’re special to me, and this needs to not be... wham-bam. Not with the rutting and the... everything. It’s too much, like I said.”

Castiel clearly did not understand. Dean nodded, taking a step back, starting to take his shirt off. “Maybe go slow. And... talk. Talk to me.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

Dean began on his jeans, slipping them to his ankles and leaving them on the floor. He took off his socks, thinking. “Anything on your mind.”

“I like your thighs.”

Dean grinned, tossing his socks away. “Good start.”

Castiel crawled over the bed, fingertips outstretched to brush Dean’s hip. Dean looked at where their bodies met, feeling star-points of light under his skin. He crooked his elbow back and slid his fingers parted through Castiel’s. Castiel held his hand.

Dean leaned in and pushed Castiel back against the bed with his free hand. Castiel let himself be pushed, and then let Dean undo his jeans, one-handed.

Dean had never undone his own pair of jeans when he wasn’t wearing them. It bordered on surreal, but finding Castiel’s body under the parted denim made him aware of the Earth under him, turning endlessly as he made Castiel naked. Surreal, but pleasant and grounding.

He took Castiel’s borrowed underwear off too, fingers under elastic sliding down, closer to himself. As he pulled, he admired Cas’ semi-erect cock as it rose some more. He’d never seen another man’s sex so close before, not in real life; the sight fascinated him.

Castiel let go of his hand so he could take Dean’s underwear off too. Dean watched his own erection bob upward, lifting without a touch. Castiel did that to him.

Castiel also touched him; fingertips on Dean’s foreskin.

Dean met his eye, and in Castiel’s expression he saw trepidation, but it did not equal the countless affirmations. He was innocent to this, but had the fire of lust in him. He would know what to do, same as Dean would be able to work it out.

Dean licked his lips. “Uh. Against the headboard,” he said, raising a shivery hand to gesture. “Sit back?”

Castiel nodded, and scooted backwards until his back pressed to the wood. Dean watched him prop the single pillow behind himself, expectant eyes set on Dean.

Dean gathered up his sanity, and put himself on the bed, shifting forward on his knees. He sank deeply into the mattress, so much heavier than he’d been as a cat. Castiel held his arms out to welcome Dean as he made it to him, and Dean toppled under a rush of relief and undefined emotion, guided into Castiel’s lap.

Castiel bent his knees up behind Dean’s buttocks, and Dean sank down until he was flush against Castiel’s groin. He could feel the firmness of Cas’ cock against his balls, and Dean’s own hardness was resting on Castiel’s lower stomach. Dean looked down, body burning hot in reaction to how it looked. Their naked bodies were pressed together, and it was good.

Castiel met his eye. “How is this, is this okay?”

Dean nodded. He touched Castiel’s erection with his fingertips, and yet again, his skin flared hot all over. “Uh-huh.”

Castiel’s breath juddered with his arousal. His gaze roamed Dean’s face, always lingering on his lips and eyes. Hands slid on Dean’s wide hips, thumbs caressing him. “Are you scared?”

Dean thought about it, then shook his head. “Excited.”

Castiel smiled, eyes on Dean’s hand as he fingered Castiel’s cockhead. “That feels nice.”

“This kind of touching... I uh, I do this, with myself,” Dean said quietly. While he demonstrated on Castiel, his own member went untouched, but he didn’t mind.

He had never spoken so honestly about his own body to Castiel, always so afraid that his honest words would turn their friendship into exactly what it had become now. Dean didn’t know why he’d been so afraid.

Castiel swallowed.

Dean smirked. “What are you not saying?”

Castiel kissed Dean’s jawline. “Show me?” he whispered. “Show me how you... touch?”

“I’m doing it to you now,” Dean replied, nosing Castiel’s hollow cheek.

“No, I want―” Castiel’s breath became ragged and trembling all at once, and Dean ducked back so he could see the mask of unexpected pleasure Castiel wore. His cheeks had flushed with a red triangle each, eyes shining and dark. His lips quivered. “I want to see you touch yourself.”

Dean’s eyes widened. From any other lover, he would take that as a clear instruction, but from Castiel it raised a lot of questions for Dean. “You think about that?”

Castiel seemed ashamed, eyes turning down to watch Dean start to tug at his own cock too, both of his hands busy now. “I think about you a lot.”

“When you touch?”

Castiel shook his head. “I don’t touch.”

Dean breathed against his chin, nicking his stubble with his teeth. With a flick of his eyes to meet his gaze, he asked, “Never?”

Castiel shook his head again. “I used to think about you touching yourself. I still do. Ever since I first saw you alone in your motel room.”

Dean chuckled, rocking his hips forward at the memory. “You friggin’ stalker. I remember that.”

“I always checked after then that you were clothed before I arrived, but I never forgot what I saw.”

Castiel swallowed, and without any warning, slowly skimmed his parted fingers through Dean’s hair. Dean moaned and spread himself into the touch, interjecting Castiel’s exhale with another pleasured noise. God, he loved touch. He loved Cas’ hands on him, the petting and the stroking...

“Oh... that’s what you want,” Castiel realised, taking in the heat that had run under Dean’s skin, making him glow hot, blown embers inside him. “That’s _all_ you want, isn’t it?”

Dean frowned and met Cas’ curious gaze, blinking hard to try and see through the bleariness in his eyes. “Wh...?”

Castiel smiled widely, like he’d solved a puzzle. “Dean, you don’t want sex, you want to be petted.”

Dean blinked a few times, confused. But then Castiel stroked his head again, and Dean almost passed out from how high his temperature rose in an instant, how his skin prickled with pleasure and his toes curled, his spine arching so he could fill Castiel’s hand with his whole body at once, something altogether impossible.

“Yes,” Castiel said, grinning. “Dean...”

“Shuddupppp,” Dean grumbled, falling forward to curl against Castiel’s chest, forehead to his shoulder. His erection had not waned at all, but Castiel’s had grown stronger, even though Dean’s fingers had ceased their fiddling, distracted.

Castiel stroked Dean’s back, slipped fingers through his hair, put kisses on his neck. Dean’s hands shook violently, holding the back of Castiel’s shoulders for balance. His breath grated on his throat as he panted, ripe moans breaking from him without his direct permission. It felt so good. So _fucking_ good.

Dean whimpered, and clawed at Castiel with blunt fingernails, head dizzy, vision blacked by his clenching eyelids. He got so _hard_ from the touches, that shouldn’t be right, that shouldn’t happen. But it was incredible, the way Castiel soothed him and whispered nonsense on his neck, bit him gently, _fingered_ him - his ears, the nape of his neck. Unbelievably gentle.

“How long, Dean?” Castiel mouthed on Dean’s skin as he started to sweat. “How long have you wanted to be held?”

Dean laughed, then straightened - he was still huffing as he reached Castiel’s lips and kissed him. He moaned roughly into the kiss, and broke it, panting open-mouthed. His hand grasped a handful of Castiel’s hair, and he grinned at the blue-eyed beauty he was so pleased to have between his legs. “I don’t get ‘held’.”

Castiel looked back blandly, with a devilish twinkle in his eye. “I will hold you.”

“You don’t need to, Cas.”

Castiel wrapped an arm around Dean and yanked him the few inches they had between their chests; now Dean couldn’t see his own cock, but felt it rub on Castiel’s. Castiel hugged him.

Dean sank into it, not realising until now how good it was. “Oh... god.”

Castiel kissed his shoulder. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep tonight.”

“I’m not staying here tonight.”

“I’m coming with you,” Castiel whispered. “You asked me to stay. Sometimes staying means following where I’m too scared to go.”

“Cas―”

“Don’t fight me, Dean. I want to be with you.”

Dean reluctantly tugged his body far away enough that he could look at Castiel properly. “I wasn’t gonna fight you. I was gonna say... thanks.”

Castiel pulled Dean in for a kiss, and Dean smiled against him. The smile turned to a gasp, however, when Castiel began to stroke him again. Particularly when Cas ran fingers through Dean’s hair, it sent thrumming fractals of electric sensation through Dean’s body, and it was nothing short of blissful.

He could come from that kind of touch, easily.

Castiel dragged fingers behind Dean’s ear, tickling him. _Oh shit―!_ ...Dean almost peaked right then, but the sensation frizzled out and passed, and he shifted in Cas’ lap, wanting him to press between his legs some more, harder.

“Sshhh-it,” he stammered, feeling his collar tag spin on its strap as he pulled away momentarily, heaving for breath. He looked down, surprised to see clear fluid seeping from Castiel’s slit, shiny on his skin. “Cas, you’re totally getting off on this...”

Castiel laughed, deep and rumbly. Teeth pressed gently into the skin of Dean’s neck, making them both shudder. Lips moving on the same skin, Castiel murmured, “I thought that was the point.”

“Mm...” Dean curved forward and kissed towards the back of Castiel’s neck, feeling a few curled locks of hair poke at his face. “Hey... Would you’ve touched me like this if I were still a cat?”

Castiel breathed on his shoulder, then kissed him there. “You and I were not the same species―”

Dean had expected him to say that. “You were an angel before, and I’m a human. That’s not the same species either. You’re sayin’ that when you were still mojo’d up, you and me kissing back then would’ve been the same as a regular human kissing his pet. Is that what you’re saying?”

“You’re not my pet,” Castiel said, so quickly that Dean supposed he had also expected Dean to bring up such an argument.

Dean touched the tag he wore, and leaned back in Cas’ lap to show him. Holding it up, it caught the light and glossed bright into Dean’s eyes. “This thing right here says otherwise.”

Castiel slowly met Dean’s eyes, wide hands still gripping his hips. Cas gaped a little, but after a moment, he replied, “You don’t belong to me. And I don’t want to belong you... but I am _yours_.” He swallowed, lips turning up in a small smile at Dean’s frozen expression. “I want you to be mine, too.”

Dean shook as he let the tag drop back to his chest. With a half-grin, he exhaled. “You’re such a fucking sap, Cas. Seriously, what issue of _Cosmo_ have you been reading?”

Castiel’s eyes hardened. “Stop that, Dean.”

“Stop what?”

“There is no need for pretence. Stop pretending this is a game, or funny, or embarrassing. I love you, which is why I chose that particular tag for you, and I know you love me too, else you wouldn’t have kept it. If you’re not ready to say it aloud, I won’t complain. But don’t joke about it.” Castiel’s lips stilled, and he lowered his gaze. “It hurts when you pretend it doesn’t matter, Dean.”

Dean’s heart had either stopped, or was beating so fast he could no longer feel it. How the hell was he meant to respond to that?

“I... I, uh...” Dean’s lips rounded on soundless words, and he gulped. “Uh.”

“Say ‘thank you’, Dean.”

“Thank... you?”

Castiel smiled widely, but didn’t lift his gaze. “You’re welcome.” Then, he met Dean’s eye, and Dean could have burst from how good it felt to have Cas look at him like that, like _he_ was the reason for every single smile he ever gave.

Castiel set his mouth on Dean’s, and Dean melted into it, fingers folding to tangle with the soft curls of hair at the nape of Cas’ neck. Castiel put one hand on Dean’s lower back and one hand between his shoulder blades, and using those hands to hold Dean close, he began to push his hips into Dean, upwards, as if he were penetrating Dean from underneath.

God, Dean moaned. He moaned loudly. The sound wobbled, died out, and finally sank into a silence filled only by panting breaths.

Dean pretended he was getting fucked right now. Cas’ cock could have been inside him, moving. He could have been full up and stretched wide by _Cas_ , and those musings alone had him sweat hot, flushed with colour that showed on his skin, made him glow from the inside out. And all the while, all Cas was doing was rubbing against him, wetting between his legs with pre-come. It slid, and Dean _heard_ it sliding, their bodies moving together.

A whisper came to Dean, uttered around Cas’ breath, “I would not mind dying, Dean, if my life was spent with you.”

Dean didn’t think he’d shared a more intimate moment with anyone than that, right then.

Castiel began to rub Dean’s back, fingers mapping the bumps of his spine, the muscles that moved over his shoulders. Dean arched into it, made broken, needy sounds.

He couldn’t find it in him to be ashamed, because what Cas did to him took him beyond shame. He didn’t hold back. He let go of any noise that rose into his mouth, said any words that formed. He wasn’t sure what he said, but he spoke poetry. Perhaps poets were all drunken, perhaps this was what musicians felt like when they made their art. Dean may have spoken nothing but nonsense, but the point was that he didn’t care.

Cas made him feel good. Cas kept him safe. Cas offered love and closeness, something Dean did not want from anyone else in the same way.

Dean was a romantic at heart, and always had been. Now he was in love. It wasn’t important to fight it, it was important to embrace it. As a cat he didn’t care about maintaining his masculinity or modesty or looking like an idiot, because he was a _cat_. There were no social rules for him like that. And he’d never felt more comfortable than he did back then.

He wanted that again. He worked for it, rolling his hips on Cas, riding him gently, feet either side of his thighs. He didn’t care if the position they made love in would appear ungainly, because it felt fantastic. It made him press close to Cas’ body, and it made his cock rub on Cas’ skin, and that was all that mattered.

Cas looked at him with such careful sweetness. Dark blue eyes, universes in the centre of each. Those eyes glistened with bright stars, blinked softly.

He leaned in to kiss Dean, and Dean let out a sweeping sound of happiness. “ _Cas_...”

Castiel smiled, kissed Dean’s lips again, tongue hot against Dean’s own. “Keep... moving on me, Dean. I - _ahh_ , yes - I feel something...”

Dean kissed him hard, mouthing against his lips, “You gonna come?”

Castiel thought about it, kissing Dean again. “I think so. I’ve never - _mm!_ N-never done that before...”

“It’s gonna feel amazing, Cas,” Dean panted, bumping his hips against Cas, again and again. “It’s gonna get addictive after the first time.”

“Ah... Dean...” Castiel managed a trembling smile, collarbone shifting as he breathed. “Th- Then, I want... Want to do it. With you. Oh... Oh, Dean...”

Dean’s right hand crept between their bodies, and he started to pull on both their erections at once, jacking them both off. Dean couldn’t resist watching the show, and purred under his breath as he saw their skin touching, wrinkled and dark, slickened with pre-ejaculate. The smell of it was stinging his throat, and he licked his lips, intoxicated by the almost overwhelming number of sensations he felt.

“Dean! Dean, I’m―”

“That’s it,” Dean whispered, blood hurtling under his skin with possessive power, all throughout his body. “Gonna make you come. C’mon, Cas. C’mon, let it go.” He stroked Castiel’s hair, petting him the way he’d been petting Dean: fingers parted, sweeping towards the back of his head, repeat. His other hand didn’t stop tugging them to climax, knowing he could be close, already feeling the stark, thrumming _harshness_ of pleasure in his veins, in his bones. Pressure, tight muscles. So close.

Castiel whined, mouth open, eyes half-shut, gaze locked on Dean. His face was blushing, his lips swollen. He was beautiful, on the very brink of his first orgasm.

“Come for me, Cas,” Dean smiled, biting his lower lip. “Make it good, c’mon.”

Castiel’s jaw dropped open wider, eyebrows rising. His eyes shut, a wrinkled frown between his eyebrows, and he looked surprised under the mask of euphoria. Dean felt the hot, _hot_ spurts of semen flowing over his hand, but he didn’t look, all his attention on Cas’ expression.

He caught his eye at the very second Castiel’s eyelashes lifted to take in a line of light. Dean beamed at him, breath caught. He was Cas’ first. And he wanted to be his only. He was Dean’s forever.

Dean had reached the point where he had absolutely no problems with that at all. It was awesome.

“That feel good?” Dean huffed, grinning as he jacked himself alone now, since Cas’ cock had gone too limp to stay in Dean’s grip.

Castiel smiled. He was adorably exhausted, but Dean wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily.

Dean licked his lips, glancing down to see the mess Cas had made. His slippery white emissions made it easier for Dean to get himself off, and he revelled in how he could do that. He’d never used jizz as lube before, and it was pretty fun.

“Cas, look,” Dean muttered, resting his forehead on Castiel’s cheek. “God, that’s so hot...”

Castiel’s eyelashes tickled Dean’s cheek as he turned his face down to see. “It looks like milk.”

Dean snorted, then laughed, met Cas’ eyes - then he came. He hadn’t been expecting it so soon, or all at once like that, but it burst out of him, searing hot and bone-locking in its intensity. His skin set itself on fire, heartbeat pounding furiously in his head, lungs gasping for breath as his body curved into the pleasure. The heat overtook him and drowned him, and all he saw was Cas, eyes barely keeping their focus on his interested face.

Dean grunted his exhales as he simmered down, the high of his orgasm still making him feel sexy and invincible. “ _Uhh_ oh god.” Holy motherfucking _shit_ , that was good. That laugh had been all he needed to set him off.

Castiel kissed the corner of his lips. “I like orgasms.”

Dean grinned, sweat becoming tacky where his face rested on Cas’. “Yeah.” He panted, then swallowed. “Me too.”

“Would you like to do that again?”

Dean snorted, and lifted his heavy head to meet Cas’ eye. “You know you can’t right away, don’t you? Gotta wait a bit.”

Castiel’s eyes flicked between each of Dean’s. “How long?”

Dean shrugged a shoulder, his mind still hazy. He found himself unable to let his smile go slack. “I dunno. Like, half an hour or more. We’re not exactly teenagers.”

Castiel looked unimpressed at the figure. Dean beamed at him, and added, “At least you’re human. If refractory time goes up by age, you’re probably old enough that you just wore yourself out for life.”

Castiel was definitely put out by that. “I will wait half an hour.”

Dean grinned, chuckling as he let his head flop onto Castiel’s shoulder. “Fuck. Man, I haven’t done that with someone else in years. Feels so good after, you know? Actually...” he took Castiel’s bicep in his palm, smiling at the swell of muscle, “actually having someone to touch.”

Castiel rubbed at Dean’s lower back, fingertips massaging. He nestled his head against Dean’s neck, and sighed. “I think being human might not be so bad after all.”

Dean snorted. “Sex is a highlight, for sure.”

“Mmmm...” Castiel took a very deep breath, then slowly let it out against Dean’s back. It was warm, and very nice.

Dean wanted to go to sleep with him breathing on him like that, which was a first for Dean. He still wasn’t quite over the fact that Cas liked to _watch_ him sleep, which was a fact he’d known for years, but now Dean was excited about him doing exactly that while also touching him all over.

But as he gathered himself up, preparing to ask if Cas wanted to take a nap, Dean was wrenched from all warm and cosy thoughts. Something was burning his chest, sharp and painful.

He darted back, yelping―

It was the tag around his neck, glowing red-hot and stinging horribly. Dean grabbed the cord and pulled it away from him, unable to get it over his head without making it hit his face. “Cas!” he breathed. “Shh... Cas, what the hell?”

“It’s...” Castiel raised a curious hand between their bodies, reaching out his fingertips towards the heart-shaped metal. “It’s hot.”

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Dean snapped, tensing. “It’s fucking sizzling, you jackass. What’s happening?”

“Calm down, Dean,” Castiel said, quite calmly.

“What? How do I get it off me? Shit―”

“Dean.” Castiel’s hands grasped either side of Dean’s bare shoulders. He looked him in the eye, and Dean panted quietly - then, somehow, let go of his initial panic. “It’s nothing to worry about, Dean. It’s God.”

“It’s―”

“God is with us.”

Dean kind of hated Cas sometimes. Here they were, covered in jizz, Dean’s legs apart over Cas’ lap, and Cas was holding him steady and telling him that his old man was hovering around the room with them.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Right.”

Castiel smiled serenely.

Dean stared wide-eyed, mouth agape. Cas... wasn’t kidding. Okay, this was literally the weirdest pillow talk Dean had ever heard.

Cas’ eyes darted to the glowing tag, which had miraculously not burned through the cord it hung on. Dean was still gripping it away from his body. “Dean, your amulet was supposed to glow in the presence of God. You disposed of that amulet, but now... you have another one, this tag.”

He removed one hand from Dean’s arm, and his fingers instead closed around the glowing metal heart. Dean startled, expecting to see his skin burn the same way Dean’s had, but nothing happened. Castiel ran his thumb over the engraved letters on the tag, eyes twinkling.

“God is with us,” Castiel said again, and let the tag dangle once more. He replaced his hands on Dean, sliding down his biceps, caressing him. “We’re not alone.”

Dean surreptitiously put his free hand over his penis. No way he wanted a deity cruising on his junk. Especially because this particular deity was technically Cas’ father.

Dean’s eyes flicked to the ceiling, which looked like it always did. He glanced around the room, and again saw nothing. The tag in his hand was almost whistling, however.

“Uh,” Dean said to the room at large, “Big guy? Hi.”

No answer. Cas just smiled, the fucker.

“Um,” Dean gulped and addressed a full sentence to God. _The_ God. “I know you’re probably here because me and your son just kinda had a... a thing, but, uh...” he frowned, and gulped, “but I really hope you won’t pull out the shotgun on me, okay? I’m not here to take advantage of him. Honest.” He waved two fingers at the ceiling, hoping it was something resembling a Boy Scout salute. “I... I really like him. Good intentions, I swear. Please don’t smite me?”

Castiel chuckled. “Dean, He won’t smite you.”

Dean shot Cas a quick look. “How do you know? He burned me already.”

“He was merely announcing His presence,” Castiel said.

Dean shifted on Cas’ lap a bit. Glancing at the tag, he saw it glow brighter, almost white. Dean’s eyes widened, all at once feeling a presence around him, heavy and humongous. The whistling got louder, the lamp on the nightstand starting to shake on its perch. “Shit,” Dean whispered. “Shit, shit, please, _please_ , don’t incinerate me, I love him, okay? I’m in love, I’m in love, don’t hurt me!”

Castiel breathed softly. “Dean...”

Dean was fucking terrified, he wasn’t about to lie. Something was _in his bedroom_ and he could tell it was massive, beyond massive. It pressed him in from all sides, and he gasped for breath, shallow and tight, and he crawled closer against Cas, feeling his arms around him as he shook in utter weakness. His vision was vibrating - or maybe it was the room, a deep rumble coursing under everything, under the whole building.

He was nothing under this almighty heat, this roar of absolute _existence_ around him.

“Dean, shh, shh,” Castiel hushed, stroking Dean’s hair. “Don’t be scared.”

Dean wailed.

Castiel kissed the top of Dean’s head. “Say a prayer.”

“What?” Dean panted, “What, like―?”

“O Father, who art in this bedroom, please stop scaring Dean, amen,” Castiel said.

The room began to shake violently, gusts of wind came from nowhere, or everywhere at once; papers scattered off the shelf beside the bed, keys on the typewriter pressing themselves. Dean could feel the white-hot shimmer of the tag, still dangling under his fist, so careful to keep it away from himself. The lamp bloomed with sudden light, intense and almost blinding, impossibly bright. Dean clung to Cas, his only comfort as his world exploded around him.

“D-Dear God,” Dean breathed, kissing Castiel’s shoulder, eyes shut tight against the raging light and sound, “Dear God, please let me be with Cas. Let me look after S-Sam, and Charlie and Kevin. Please don’t let me die without―”

His words ended because everything else ended.

Silence. Stillness.

Dean gasped, feeling Castiel touch his hair.

“He’s gone, Dean,” Castiel said, smiling. “That wasn’t so awful, was it?”

Dean couldn’t lift his head from Cas’ shoulder. “Mh.”

Castiel chuckled, rubbing Dean behind his ear, bristling the short hair there. “What was it you were going to tell Him?”

Dean breathed out, nosing into Castiel’s shoulder. “Don’t let me die without saying goodbye.”

Castiel kissed his temple.

Dean let out another long, calming breath, easing himself back. The tag had stopped glowing, so he let it go. It fell and rested on his chest as if nothing had happened.

His legs ached from kneeling for so long, and he figured Castiel’s must be about the same. Falling off him, Dean flopped onto the bed, lying on his back and wheezing in total relief. His heart was still thudding.

Castiel slid down and joined Dean lying on the bed, naked by his side.

Cas took a breath, then said, “I didn’t say anything about this yesterday... You probably wouldn’t have believed me.” 

“B- Believed you about what? What didn’t you say?”

“I had a revelation,” Castiel told him. “In the hallway where we shared our ‘group hug’. Moments before Sam arrived, in fact.”

“Huh?”

Staring straight upwards, Castiel swallowed, his throat pulling tight to his jaw. Dean watched him carefully as he explained, “It wasn’t my deal with Crowley that sealed the gates of Heaven and Hell. The deal wasn’t supposed to work like it did. Crowley was supposed to be a demon, I was supposed to die immediately. Or perhaps in a year, since Crowley was apparently feeling generous. But I found out what - or who - changed all that.”

“It was God? Your old man suddenly decides to pop outta the woodwork after - ha! - _God knows_ how long, and he chooses now? Why not a few days earlier, when it actually mattered?”

“It matters now, Dean,” Castiel said, turning his head and gazing across at him. He was smiling. “Now, perhaps all the angels will have some guidance. Maybe people’s prayers will be answered at long last. God’s presence is always a good thing.”

Dean scoffed, “Chuh. Yeah. Even when it scares the shit outta unsuspecting hunters.” He set his jaw and frowned at Cas, seriously ticked off by how easily a few rattling shelves had taken him down to begging. That wasn’t _him_ , he wasn’t the guy who freaked out and curled up in a corner. He’d planned scenarios in his head over the years, things he’d say to God if He ever showed up, and sure, he’d started on the speech (cocky tone, a joke here and there, perhaps a thank-you for sending him Cas) but he hadn’t made it through.

Castiel only looked at Dean with soft assurance. “We’re going to be okay, Dean.”

Dean found himself smiling across Cas. He was really cute when he was happy. Actually, he was cute all the time, but he was definitely a lot cuter when he had an after-sex glow and a whole extra helping of hope for the future. And a proper smile, too.

Dean reached over and took Castiel’s hand without looking. Castiel squeezed.

“Hey, uh... Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

In a whisper, Dean said, “...Um. I’ll - I’ll take that tummy rub... now.”

✖✖✖

Bags packed, Dean waited by the entrance to the bunker. He was jittery with anticipation, and perhaps a little overexcited. It was the opposite to adrenaline, he figured - he and Cas had taken a really great nap together, and even though it was only early evening now, he was as fresh and lively as the first day of spring.

“I swear, so long as you don’t let him get to you, you’ll be fine,” Dean heard Sam say, and he assumed he was talking to Kevin around the corner. His assumption was proved correct, as Sam came down the short steps that led from smaller hall with the map table to the darker entrance hall, where Dean was waiting.

Kevin pushed his floppy black hair off his forehead, sighing. “What if he tries to escape?”

“Use a cattle prod,” Dean supplied.

“No, Dean,” Castiel said, trotting down the steps, a seventy-year-old backpack hanging off his shoulder. “Crowley is human, we ought to show him the same concern we would show any human.” To Kevin, he said quietly, “Treat him the way you would be prepared to treat a victim of a demon, not the demon itself. He may be more than a vessel, but, in all respects, he’s like me.” Castiel looked at his boots, blinking. “Powerless and grounded.”

“But - you’re still nice. Soooo,” Kevin said, “he’s still evil.”

Castiel glanced at Sam, then nodded. “Yes.”

Dean smiled. “Cattle prod’s in the kitchen, next to the axe.”

Kevin nodded, and Dean reached forward to clap him on the shoulder. “You named your bunny rabbit yet?”

“She’s a chinchilla,” Kevin said, apparently resolved to correct them every time, even when they were teasing. “And even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“What, embarrassed ‘cause I picked ‘Chewbacca’ for you and you realised I was right?”

“No.”

“Dean,” Sam said, in his borderline-whiny ‘ _we need to get going_ ’ tone of voice. “We need to get going.”

Dean huffed, shoving Kevin gently. “Look after Charlie while we’re gone.”

“I heard that,” Charlie said, entering from the hall and moving to join the posse. She was wearing a purple backpack.

“Where are _you_ going?” Dean asked.

Charlie smiled brightly. Far too cheerfully, she said, “Where do you think, you moron? I’m going on an adventure.”

Castiel hummed a laugh, not meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean glared at Castiel’s downturned eyelashes, then at Charlie’s smug face, knowing she wasn’t about to be dissuaded.

“This isn’t―”

“Isn’t a roadtrip,” Charlie finished, nearly rolling her eyes. “Isn’t going to be fun or interesting, might be dangerous, one or all of us might get killed, et cetera, et cetera.” She met Dean’s eye and pursed her lips. “The usual, basically.”

Before Dean could argue, Castiel’s fingers found Dean’s. Dean blinked at Charlie, but found his eyes drawing to where Castiel had touched him. He saw their fingers twined together, and he liked how it was. His gaze rose back up to see Castiel’s smile. He peered back with a mild kind of intensity - pretty much the way he usually looked at Dean. Dean felt extremely satisfied.

“Huh,” Sam said.

Dean looked at his brother quickly. “Did I mention that God didn’t smite me?”

Sam smiled, but his smile was quiet, like he was trying to hold back quite how huge it really was. But a second later, his real grin burst forth, and he shone like a fucking star. “You did, actually.”

Dean gave a shy smile, turning his face back to Castiel. Fuck, he was so pretty. He dazzled.

Kevin cleared his throat, and Dean’s head turned in time to see the kid thumbing over his shoulder. “If nobody minds, I have two holy tablets to translate, so...”

“You’re taking prophetic duties over a group hug?” Dean said, eyebrows rising. “No way. Get your butt over here, Kevin Solo.”

Kevin grinned lopsidedly, and didn’t even hesitate before letting Dean encompass him with his arms. He had to let go of Cas in order to do it, but it was totally worth it.

✖✖✖

Kevin would never say it, but Dean gave the best hugs on the planet. If it wasn’t weird and gross to think about, Kevin almost envied Cas for the amount of hugs he was probably going to get in the near future.

Coming up for air at last, Kevin then saw Sam stepping forward to take him back in for another hug. Then Dean returned and added to the squeeze, then Charlie - oh no, then Cas...

Actually, Cas was pretty good at hugging too. He patted Kevin’s back, which was decidedly a normal thing to do. But then, as everyone pulled away with a collective sigh, Castiel booped Kevin on the nose with a finger. Kevin squinted. Less normal. But it wasn’t like it was the first time Cas had done that.

“All right, guess we’re ready to go,” Dean muttered, hauling his own duffel bag up onto his shoulder. “Car’s out front... got my keys, got my bag...” He turned to Cas, and threaded their fingers between each other. “Got my Cas. We’re all good. Sammy, if you would do us the honour of opening the door.”

Sam grabbed his own bags and checked his pockets before he did as Dean said. “Ladies first,” he said to Charlie, and Charlie looked positively delighted at the lack of argument she’d heard regarding her tag-along.

Charlie waved to Kevin before she stepped outside, and Kevin waved back, hoping dearly that she would come back in one piece. She was definitely more fun than the guys.

Dean pointed a single finger gun at Kevin before he left. “No blowing the budget. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t wander too far, in town only. If you’re gonna hustle pool, play it safe.”

Kevin smirked, eyes darting between Dean and Cas. “And you, use a condom,” he advised. Dean blushed.

Okay, that was definitely the highlight of Kevin’s day. He felt like he won something.

“Uh, huh, yeah,” Dean muttered, nodding as he edged for the door.

Sam came back from loading the car, and strode up to Kevin to hug him again. “Stay safe, kid. We’ll be back in a few weeks.”

“I swear you usually leave quicker than this.”

Sam smirked and knocked Kevin under the chin gently. “Call us if you need anything.”

Castiel lingered by the door, and Dean waited for him, even once Sam passed by and headed out into the evening light.

Cas raised a hand, and Kevin waved at him. Castiel waved a bit awkwardly, like it was the first time he’d done it. Then he went shifty-eyed, and made eye contact with Kevin that seemed _significant_. He nodded heavily, then turned and left.

“Bye?” Kevin called after them.

Dean grinned and waved, giving one last “See ya, Kev,” before shutting the heavy door. A leaf blew inside on the eddy of air.

Alone now, Kevin puffed out a breath. It was quiet when he was alone.

Then he smiled, because it was less quiet than usual. He had a pet, which was like having a friend, only better.

Sauntering back into the library, Kevin went straight to where his books and papers were spread over the table. At the side of the same table was his chinchilla’s cage. The rodent inside shuffled forward, and he opened the cage, letting her crawl onto his hand. He scooped her close, right up to his chest.

“Hey, you,” he smiled, petting her head. She chirruped.

“So... God’s back, huh,” Kevin said to her, tickling grey fur under his fingers. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you... Chuck?”

Chuck blinked her black, beady eyes, and appeared generally Godlike.

“Yeah,” Kevin smiled, sitting down, petting the dumpy animal. “That’s what I thought.”

✖✖✖

THE END


End file.
